Be a deer...

When I buy a quilting book, it has to have at least two quilts that I would seriously consider making before I can make the purchase. This saves me some money and saves room on my bookshelves. I don't know what I thought I was going to make out of Dare to be Square Quilting by Boo Davis when I spied it on Amazon.com, but I couldn't resist a book of patterns made with nothing but squares and straight strips. Maybe it was the idea of some relief from angles and pieced stars that was the attraction. My neighbors had a baby back in May via surrogate. I decided this special baby deserved a quilt, so I took the opportunity to make up something from the book. Dad is a hunter, so I chose "Quilt in the Headlights."

  The pattern called for 3" strips/squares, but I reduced mine to 2". After I had started, I realized I really meant to reduce them to 2.5", but there was no going back. I just added a couple of extra rows on three sides. This was trickier to assemble than one would be led to believe. The subtle color differences in the diagrams in the book finally led me to abandon them and wing it with color placement. I chose to leave out the bold red and gold accent pieces shown in the book and replace them with quieter, more woodsy bits.

I love the little birds on the perfect blue background.

I salvaged this little chipmunk from some Aunt Donna scraps.

And the slices of wintry landscapes are leftovers from the backing of the Land's End quilt.

 

I bought this canoe fabric years ago and it worked perfectly. 

It was about 60" wide, so I didn't have to piece the back.

 

I used a pink snowflake on red for the binding.
It brought out the little cardinals on the front.

I quilted it with a big, wavy diagonal grid. The sun is gleaming off the bottom left-hand corner of the picture. That's why it looks lighter. It was a big hit and Henry has his first deer!