{Baby Shower Gift: Bunting Quilt}

A dear friend of mine is expecting her miracle princess soon. We celebrated her baby shower this past weekend. It was a beautiful afternoon catching up with friends, laughing, enjoying delicious pink food and drink. It was divine and precious. This precious princess already is very well dressed and has so many cute shoes and accessories before she has made her grand entry to the world. My beautiful friend (center) is the one expecting soon. Here she is with me (left) and another of our friends (right) whom decorated the whole pink affair with effortless style as she is known to do!

A special arrival deserves a special gift. I tried my hand at quilting and I had SO much fun. Albeit without some of the tools which would have made it somewhat easier (i.e. a walking foot). Hopefully I can acquire one soon before my second quilt attempt. 

The colour brief from the Dad to be was light pink, light grey and white (and a few stars if that helps ;) I wanted a design that would be girly, but timeless.
With that in mind, I decided to use an applique style so I could get the flowing affect of the bunting.  I put the bunting design together with the colours and deepened the palette slightly to add depth and interest.  

 

This is not a tutorial as I fumbled my way through this learning as I went. However basically it followed these main steps.

1. Cut Quilters Muslin to size ( I used a large baby blanket I had as a guide)
2. Cut out flags to desired size. (this took some trial and error with printed templates and ended up about 10x15 cm)
3. Baste with pins, tacking stitch or bastinf spray to front backing. 
4. Run a tight Zig zag stitch around each flag. I found it easiest to do all the grey shaded flags together, then pink and green. Saved changing thread each time.
5. Find a ribbon that matches and sew on top of the flags.
6. I cut out a bird template and heat bonded it on before straight stitching around it.
7. Get ready to baste together with a tacking stitch by putting together the quilt sandwich. I used a flannel layer first (front facing down - I taped this to a table to avoid moving). Then place the batting as the middle layer next...followed by the top appliqued layer. Use your tacking stitch with a cheap thread you don't mind throwing away. 
9. I machine quilted it together and decided to use a 4 inch gap between rows, following the bunting ribbon below.
10. Sew around the edge of the quilt with a straight stitch.
11. My batting and flannel layer were larger than the top, so I cut the excess off, leaving a few mm that filled the binding.
12. Measure your quilt perimeter and add 10 inces for overlap. THis is your measurement for binding length. 
13. Cut strips of your binding fabric and then sew it together. This was the scariest step for me and I spent lots of time asking people who have done this and learning from them.

In the end I am happy with the result and the parents to-be were also thrilled. That look on her face when she opened the box was worth the time and effort.    

I ended up using some scraps to embellish some baby singlets to put with it too. So cute.

I am pleased with my first effort and I am quite excited to delve more into the classic quilting artform with a modern twist. 

Lauren x