"Out of Africa" baby quilt

All my previous quilts have been professionally quilted and I thought it was time to learn how to quilt - and what better way than on a baby quilt. Knowing that a baby was on its way in the family (how handy was that otherwise I might have had to hunt down a strange unknown baby!), I decided to make one and this is the result. The mum loves bright colours so this is one cheery quilt that should brighten any room :)

Whilst I was using this quilt as a learning tool, I thought I would also learn how to appliqué as well and I have discovered that I love appliquéing and I am not too bad at it (trying to be modest!). So you are bound to see many more quilts containing appliqué!! It was so much fun doing all these animals - slow but rewarding!! 

I am only a novice at quilting and have SO much more to learn - this is far from perfect and caused a lot of grief when I had to unpick my mistakes. The one thing I learnt was to have a clear plan before starting out and not change plans mid way, which is what I did (more than once). Planning would have reduced some of the unpicking which I didn't enjoy and many of the errors.  

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery."

Wise words from James Joyce as I have certainly made discoveries during my mistakes !!

Fortunately, baby will not notice all my errors and hopefully will love the colours and animals and enjoy it!

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. 

Art is knowing which ones to keep".

(Scott Adams)

As for the backing fabric - one of my favourites - its from the "The Hungry Caterpillar" collection which is just so colourful and bright - this is what joy looks like on fabric!!  The next time I see this on sale, I plan to buy metres as its SO good for backing fabric. 

Next sewing project is to make three work skirts and then start a quilt for my eldest son which I will also be quilting myself and doing a surprise appliqué on the back. 

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