Lion and Lioness FPP

Where can you see lions?  ONLY IN KENYA! 

Remember the Weebl's Kenya flash animation?  It's on YouTube now, but I prefer it with the endless loop, for that original dorky charm!  When I was in Africa with my mom, I felt that song!  We were on the "Holy Crap.  Lions!  Tour"!  The funniest part was when I'd burst into the Kenya song, and my mom, thoroughly out of touch with the enthusiasms of the youth, would give me a baffled/amused look. 

My mom giving me "the look". Behind her-- holy crap! LIONS!

FOUNDATION PAPER PIECED LIONS

For my paper pieced lions, I use two patterns from JoeJuneandMae on Etsy; here's the lion and the lioness.  I print them in the 10" squares, and extend the edges by a half inch to make the size match my already pieced superb starling.  Here's the lion and the lioness patterns on Etsy.  (If you make the lioness with leopard or cheetah-print fabric, it'd be a good for those, too.  I should've done that, but I didn't think of it.  So my quilt will have two lions instead of a lion and something else.*)   

* 11/26 EDIT: Later, I do change my lioness to a cheetah! 

I select colors based on my pictures from the safari:

Assembling the lions is super easy!  I don't know if this pattern is especially well drafted, or if I've just gotten better at foundation paper piecing, but it comes together like a dream.  Here's me using fabric markers to detail the lion's tail a bit.  I do the same to his chin, because the fabrics I picked didn't have enough definition when he was done. 

Are the finished lion and lioness are ready to be added to the quilt top?  I'm not sure.  Adding the extra half-inch has made room for the stitch'n'flip corners I plan to do (more on that later, when I post about the quilt top layout), but has also made the ground they stand on rather large, like a distracting stripe.  Maybe I'll do some machine darning to add "grass" to the base of the blocks!

forget Norway... KENYA! KENYA KENYA KENYA! 

Lion cubs are actually spotted, to be more camouflage, and the adult lions retain some of that dappling on their bellies!  I never knew that before I saw them in person. 

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All the photographs in this post were taken by me, Karen Roy, in 2012, at the Maasai Mara National Reserve, which is in Kenya bordering Tanzania. 

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Memories of Africa Quilt posts
Memories of Africa Quilt
Superb Starling FPP