A Quilt for Baby Oscar

Now I'm back from my holiday (which was awesome by the way!) normal blog posting shall resume. First up are a few quilts that I made and took with me as gifts for a few special people. The first one I want to share is a baby quilt made for the new son of my dear friend Helen.

When hanging out with slightly pregnant Helen when I was in the UK a year ago, I asked her if she'd like/use a baby quilt, and following a very positive response to that question I delved a little deeper and established that she: a) doesn't like muted colours, instead preferring bright colours and b) likes elephants.

Very frustratingly, when I was shopping for fabrics for this quilt there were no fabrics with elephants that I liked. So plan B was to make my own elephant!

Big props must go to Darren (aka "The Boy") for sharing his photoshop skills in helping me with the elephant outline, as I had a photo of an elephant I'd previously embroidered that I wanted to use, but didn't have a front on picture, so it required some minor manipulation.

The main background of the quilt top is a (really quite big) disappearing-nine-patch, which was a super quick and easy design to do! It only took me a couple of hours to cut out, stitch up, cut up, and stitch up the whole of the quilt-top excluding the appliqué. The elephant was then appliquéd on with a zig-zag stitched, and the top free-motion quilted with a big stipple design (which I'm still practising getting a good 'big' stipple).

I'm madly in love with the fabric I got for the back of the quilt - SUPERHEROES!!! How amazing is the fabric!!

And look, I've already been provided with proof that it's already had some nap-time action. Hopefully it'll get plenty more use as Oscar grows up.

Bonus points if you have recognised the incredibly picturesque backdrop where these pictures were taken.