Chinese Balance Quilt & Escape Artist Sheep

I finished another small quilt today, it's intended to be a baby quilt for my next baby (no, I'm not expecting yet. I'm just a plan ahead type person). 

With my first baby, I found that a quilt that was about 27" by 33" is just right for a "traveling" quilt. It fits my carseat, is the right size for a changing table, and fits in a grocery cart seat (if I don't just leave the baby in the carseat). This is my daughter's traveling quilt:

But back to the topic at hand. I'm calling this newest quilt "Chinese Balance" because the focus fabric is this awesome rainbow phoenix fabric that I found in Madison, WI a couple years ago at Gayfeather Fabrics. Then I hand quilted it with dragons. In the Chinese culture phoenix represent a feminine aspect and dragons are masculine. 

Then in each of the 4 squares I quilted a different Chinese character, meaning Phoenix (male), Phoenix (female), Dragon (common form), Dragon (royal form). Hopefully someone who really knows their Mandarin won't see it and totally laugh, but I really like the way it turned out! 


On the farm front, the sheep are currently getting out daily. Our good energizer is back at the manufacturer (broken), so the backup energizer is... well... less than intimidating. Here the sheep are snacking on my front yard.

I think Ryan might be ready to just shoot the lot of 'em!