Trying new things - Quilting circles..

My brother-in-law and his wife are expecting their first baby in 3 weeks, which is super exciting for me as it will finally make me an Aunty for the very first time! They decided not to find out whether they were having a boy or a girl, so they wanted a gender neutral theme for the nursery. My sister-in-law found some gorgeous jungle themed things for their nursery, so when I found this fabric:

I knew it would be perfect for the quilt that I wanted to make for her as a baby shower gift! I've had this fabric since before Christmas, but of course I hadn't done anything with it because I had *AGES* until the baby was due... but I figured that this week I'd better do something about it as I'm hosting the baby shower next weekend!

So Monday saw me with my rotary cutter and my sewing machine, cutting the blocks to size and working out how to lay them out. I ended up deciding to make 2 panels exactly the same so that the quilt could be completely reversible - this also gave me a few extra challenges later, but I won't get ahead of myself!

I sashed the blocks with a lime green homespun - 2.5" strips (cut with my Accuquilt GO! - gosh I love that thing!) and then on Tuesday I added 4.5" strips to border it. I was a bit stumped when it came time to work out how to quilt it because having decided to make it reversible I couldn't really chance stitching in the ditch incase I hadn't lined it up properly on both sides. I did a quick survey on twitter amongst some of my crafty girlfriends and the lovely Quiltjane suggested concentric circles. Initially I was intimidated by the idea of doing circles as I've only ever straight line quilted or free motion stippled (I've only been FMQing for a few weeks).. but the idea grew on me as the day progressed.

 In the end I grabbed a dinner plate, a bread & butter plate and a demitasse coffee saucer and drew asymmetrically nested circles all over the quilt. It was surprisingly less daunting than I'd anticipated, although it seemed like it was going to take forever when I started. But I spent most of Wednesday quilting and managed to finish it off, thank goodness!

Today I trimmed it back ready for binding (I didn't get much sewing time in as I had other things on through the day), so at tomorrow morning's craft playdate I'll cut and sew the binding on... and then it will be finished..

Well, except for the million threads that need to be tied off!

I think it turned out pretty awesome, and I was impressed by how quickly I managed to get it pieced and quilted.. it's not often that I make a baby quilt from start to finish in less than a week.. and with a week to spare until the baby shower! I guess I'll have time to applique some of the spare animals onto those face washers I bought.....

I also decided to link up with T(ry)N(ew)T(hings) Thursdays at Happy Quilting because I've never tried quilting circles before.. but it turned out so nicely that I'll definitely do it again :)






And I'm also linking up with Sunni's "This Week" linky party :)