My husband came into my sewing room recently with a request- usually this involves something odd like “sew me a camping backpack!” but this time, it was for a quilt! His co-worker is expecting her first baby, and he was so thrilled for her that he wanted to do something special. That was something I could totally do.
I had him nonchalantly ask her what she was doing for her nursery theme (although I’m sure she thought it was odd that this man-card wielding guy was asking about nursery colors…) and she said Safari… and we all know some GORGEOUS fabrics in that theme, but they all seemed too feminine to me. I started my search for a good “Hero” print with some good Safari animals, and I planned to use my stash to fill in the blanks. I finally came across this main print- I just knew Robert Kaufman would come through for me!
Then… pattern time. I looked and looked, but I kept coming back to this simple layout, inspired by the Elephant March quilt by Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew that I saw ages ago. I even copied that exact quilt in the pink colorway a few years back (I asked her first! ha ha!) because it was so brilliantly simple. Sometimes, that’s all you need, simple. And with only one themed print, it was definitely the way to go! I quilted it with a basic stipple… as a matter of fact, I was almost halfway through and had been doing AWESOME! It was looking so good, and then I took a break to make dinner and do all the bedtime stuff, and came back and WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP, it was like I had never quilted a day in my life. And so it goes. Now I know I should let me kids go hungry instead of stop mid-quilty-awesomeness. 😉
(Friends, I’m such a dork. And no makeup and a lazy ponytail. Hello!)
I found a little helper when we were taking these photos… someone has really figured out that when mom pulls out the camera, she needs to be in front of it 😉 Knobby knees and mosquito bites… is their anything cuter? Ha ha!
This girl. We all delight in her, even though she colors on our patio with marker and cuts the hair off all her My Little Ponies. She did love watching me make this quilt, though, and when I had everything stuck up on my design wall she would point to each animal and we named them together. Then she was furious with me when I started pulling blocks off to actually sew it together, and only forgave me when she saw it all done again. Drama Queen!
Anywho, this is now packaged up and ready to go! This needs to get to a nursery before September, so it is ready just in the nick of time! I hope this baby loves it as much as we do!
(Finished quilt was 39″ x 50″, and each block finished at 5.5″, laid out 7 blocks by 9 blocks. I ordered 1 yard of the main print, and then used random fabric from my stash to tie it all together)