This must be the year of the baby! This is the fourth baby born in my office this year and we only have about 20 people! And, we still have one to go! Not to even start counting my friends. . . . But, I’m not complaining. More babies mean more fun baby gifts to make and give. I was trying to do something simple for this one since I found out about it last minute. I had most of these fabrics in my stash so that made it easy. I just had to pick up one or two more. The “feature fabric” on this one was the Michael Miller “Giraffe Garden” in Citron. I love giraffe’s and this showcases them in such a fun way. Of course it wasn’t until I took these pictures that I realized that I could have done a little fussy cutting to actually get the little giraffe heads in but, luckily, giraffes have cute legs too. 😉 There are a number of other fabrics on this quilt too but, the majority of them are Michael Miller prints.
I call this the Jack-In-The-Box Quilt. The accordion shape that the different colors make in the quilt reminds me of the Jack-In-The-Box toys where “Jack” I presume pops up out of the box and bounces around. Does it remind you a little of the accordion body? This quilt started out as an experiment in using trapezoids in piecing a quilt. I had so much fun playing with them. The problem is that there are only about a million different arrangements you can put them in. This isn’t really a problem but, then you have to choose just which of the arrangements you are going to use. Luckily, I was working on this at a weekend sew at the LA Modern Quilt Guild and my good friend Katie helped me to lay this out and decide. Thanks Katie! I think it turned out awesome! I’ll have to share some of the other trapezoid layouts with you too – traps are awesome!
This was my first time using flannel on the back of a quilt. It makes it so soft and cuddly. One of my favorite local fabric stores, M&L Fabrics in Anaheim has a wonderful selection of flannels for under $3 a yard so I thought I’d try one on this quilt. Believe me, it won’t be the last time! I really did like the effect. Of course, I forgot to put my label on before I basted and quilted this baby, so I had to put it on afterward. And then, I put the label on and hadn’t written the details on the quilt so I had to write it on the quilt after it was attached.
The quilting lines are very simple. They just shadow the lines of the accordion shape.
They show really cool on the back of the quilt though!
I probably shouldn’t do this because the label is not my finest work but, here’s a closer view of it. Note to self: Put label on BEFORE the quilt is basted and quilted AND write the information on the label before you attach it!
Oh, I chose to bind the quilt in white. There were so many colors going on that I thought a nice white would frame it well.
Once again, I didn’t get around to stitching up a card with a piece of fabric the way I like to so I used the jpeg images of three of the main Michael Miller fabrics in the quilt. I kinda like how it turned out. Simple and cute. Of course, you didn’t think I’d make a baby gift without a bib, a burp cloth and a onesie, did you? 🙂 (One day I’m going to fool all of you and do something different!)
And, here’s the ball!
I love how the quilt looks all rolled up and tied and ready to go into the basket!
And, here it is all put together! I get pretty lazy on this last step and just get a basket, tulle and ribbon. I’m going to have to be more creative next time. Overall I’m happy with how this came out. It’s a nice, easy, quick baby quilt to throw together! I hope baby Eli likes it. His dad took it home tonight.
