Urban Cowboy

I just finished this little quilt for my niece's baby son, whose nursery is decorated in a cowboy theme. I used mostly old dress shirts from my brother (the baby's grandfather) and my husband to make the center.

I had enough western themed bits and pieces to make a dark border,

and found these horse fabrics for the back in my stash. I quilted it in a grid pattern on my long arm machine, using the channel lock feature to keep the lines straight. After I quilted the horizontal lines, I turned the whole piece ninety degrees and quilted the vertical lines.

I've named the quilt "Urban Cowboy," in reference to the shirtings which spent most of their first career in city office buildings and, of course, for the cowboy themed prints on the border and the back.

One doesn't see cowboys every day in Austin, but in the summertime, you don't have to go too far to find a few. Nearby small towns host rodeos, which offer action-packed evenings of calf roping, bull-riding, bronc-riding and more. This group was awaiting the start of Wimberley's July 4th rodeo a couple of years ago. I love the nonchalant poses!