"Circus" Reveal: Tula-Tu Goes to the Circus

On February 1st, just a day or two before our “Circus” prompt was announced, one of the elephants at the Oregon Zoo gave birth to a new baby. The Oregon Zoo has a robust elephant breeding program, and many elephants have been born during the nearly 50 years we’ve lived in Oregon. With the prompt, though, I sat up and took notice of this new baby more than I ever have before. Here’s an announcement from our local newspaper.

Oh my gosh. Is she adorable, or what?

She was given the name, Tula-Tu. Tula means “balance” in Sanskritt. The suffix, “-Tu” is to honor her mother Rose-Tu and her grandmother, Me-Tu. (And we’ve lived in Oregon long enough to remember when Rose-Tu was born.)

Well, and I got so excited about Tula-Tu that we decided to make a trip to the zoo to see her in person. This is one of the photos I took of her that day.

My quilt was already finished by the time we saw Tula-Tu in person. Earlier, I was spending time looking at published photos for something that could be rendered into fabric. I selected and rejected a lot of photos. And then this photo of Tula-Tu came out in a fund-raising newsletter.

And I loved the sassy look on that little baby, so I set about rendering her into a quilt. These are done by fusing the pieces to a teflon pressing sheet…

Bit by bit…

Piece by piece…

Paying attention to the color shading and the layering.

When I’m satisfied with the main subject, I peel it from the teflon pressing sheet, and then fuse it to a background. And, yes, these are zoo elephants. I turned them into circus elephants by taking them on a field trip to the Circus Big Top. Tula-Tu can’t wait to get her trunk wrapped around some of those circus peanuts.

From there, I added two borders and backed it with just the batting.

I did some thread painting on the elephants and the “wood shavings.” This was done just through the quilt top and the batting.

I followed the contours of their faces and trunks, but I was also using the picture to help see the wrinkles in their leathery skin.

When the thread-painting was finished, I added the quilt back, and did the remainder of the quilting through all three layers. The tan fabric was some I purchased during a visit to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I bought it because it looked like sand, but it can serve as the wood shavings commonly seen at circuses too. I just quilted some lines following the design in the fabric.

And I outlined the stripes in the circus tent for texture.

From there, it just needed a binding.

I used the same red from the inner border.

And then my quilt was finished. I had so much fun making this. Following the story about Tula-Tu made the time spent all the more precious.

Here’s how it looks from the back. It finishes at 19 x 25 inches.

Just for grins, I'll leave you with a video of Tula-Tu. I couldn't love her any more if she were my own baby. If you can't see the video, then click right here.