Woodland Creatures Quilt

Florence is growing quickly and suddenly she’s ready to move into her own room so I wanted to make her a quilt of her own for her cot.

I’ve had the Moda ‘Thicket’ panel for some time and it seemed just right for her quilt. After a little bit of research around quilt patterns and blocks to complement the individual creatures I settled on a wonky log cabin block with primary colour and of course black and white logs. A quick look at my scraps made me rethink the primary colours to bright colours.

I was glad I had recently sorted my scraps into colour boxes, it made the selection for the blocks so much easier!

A word about black and white. Bold black-and-white images are great for young babies because they stimulate the development of the optic nerves, teaching the eye muscles and brain to coordinate and function properly. I’ve noticed that they are also naturally drawn to them in the early months in particular.

Once the first block was complete just a little bit of planning was needed to make sure the animals were all going to be central and it was off we go. Later I wished I’d spent a little more time planning the orientation of the black and white and the colours but in the quilting world I’m a relative novice and it’s still a developing skill. Next time!

I like to hang my blocks on the ‘washing line’ as I go. It helps me spot potential problems in improv blocks and generally refine my colour combinations if necessary.

I could see a little problem developing here. My final log (on the left of each block) was having to compensate for my over cutting the other logs. It would be easy to put right and get a more balanced block.

Coming together.

The blocks were quick to put together once the fabrics were ready.

Then it was just about finding the best layout. It can take time! This was when I wished I’d thought more about the orientation of the black and white and colour. Note to self. It’s all in the planning!

Next up the backing for the quilt.

Lovely Aberdashery (isn’t that the best name for a haberdasher’s shop in Aberystwyth) had just the right wadding, an eco-blend suitable for a baby quilt.

The front the wadding and the backing were pinned together to make the quilt sandwich and so it was on to the long job of actually quilting. ‘Free motion’ quilting was always a skill I wanted to grasp and I love the challenge, but it is a challenge and needs patience, concentration, a steady hand and nerve! One of the earliest free motion patterns I learned was stippling and early attempts were dreadful. I’m pleased that its now one of the patterns I frequently turn to.

I stippled around each of the woodland creatures and then stitched around each animal for definition and ‘stitched the ditch’ (sewed exactly into the seams) between each animal and the ‘logs’ and the each block with a cross stitch continuing with the black theme.

You can see this best on the back of the quilt.

The final step is the binding and for this quilt it had to be a black and white binding attached to the front by machine then hand finished at the back. I really enjoy hand finishing a quilt, its a final contact with the finished article and needs to be done at leisure, usually in front of the TV and definitely with thimbles. There’s nothing attractive about red spots on a quilt and stabbing fingers with needles is not recommended.