Giraffe & Moon Baby Quilt

Hello, hello!

Well this post is looong overdue.  To be honest, it's sat in my drafts box for so long that I actually forgot that it existed.  So I think it's time to release it unto the world.

Now, the reason as to why I've waited so long to share this post is because I've been waiting on some photos of the completed project.  However, any one of you out there who has had a baby under the age of a year will know that taking photos of a baby quilt and sending them to your friend is likely to be as far down on your priority list as this blog post ultimately became, and I really can't blame the parents (my friends) for that.  So, despite my hope of showing off this little quilt with its infant owner, I have some non-baby-featuring photos to share instead.

I keep thinking of this quilt as the cow that jumped over the moon but strangely, these are giraffes, not cows.  I'm willing to argue that it could still pass with the nursery rhyme title, though.

Giraffes & Moon Baby Quilt

Giraffes & Moon Baby Quilt

This adorable quilt was bought as a kit in the States and given to friends (as a kit) for their baby shower, with the promise that it would magically turn into a quilt by the time the baby was born.  It features soft cottons, flannels and super cosy chenille fabrics, although I discovered just how frustrating chenille can be to quilt on, as it has a tendency to snap the quilting thread.  The Heat n'Bond piecing for the characters helped everything come together quickly and easily, with just a wee bit of block piecing afterwards.

Moon & Meander Quilting

Giraffe & Hand Blanket Stitching

The blanket stitching is done by hand and the rest of the sewing and quilting were done by machine.  A combination of traditional straight and free motion meander quilting were used with a variegated blue cotton quilt thread.

The project came together very quickly with two people working on it together.  Needless to say, the parents were thrilled and baby Max loves his quilt.

Little One...Hello

Earlier this month friends of mine had a baby boy.  Naturally this meant that a baby card was in order.  I got to work straight away and in very little time came up with this (if I do say so myself - and I do) adorable card.

Now, would you believe that this card was entirely made from supplies from the Project Life baby girl kit?  Yes, indeed.  Everyone I know recently has been having baby girls and so my stash of baby related papercrafting is overloaded with pink, frilly cuteness.  And then suddenly a baby boy.  Well, I was up to the challenge.

I started shifting through the Project Life cards, looking for any non-pink possibilities.  Now, don't get me wrong, I see no problem in little boys having pink things and dolls and I certainly see nothing wrong with little girls having blue things and playing with Tonka Trunks but it's probably safest to play the gender neutral card in these situations.  So...I went with the fab retro orange and brown combination.

The elephants, stars and moon are from the Simple Stories baby girl collection kit and aren't they just the cutest?  I piled the elephants up on the bottom in a little family train.

Having added the elephants, there was suddenly this yellow from the baby elephant that was out of sync with the rest of the design and colour palette so I searched the Simple Stories sticker sheet for a way to bring more yellow into the card.  I found the moon and added some stars to make a visual triangle.  The cork cloud was a nice way of anchoring the stars and adding another texture and dimension of brown at the same time.

Finally - and I didn't take a photo of this part - I added the sentiment inside.  And to my horror, as I was writing out my note to my friends, I misspelt one of the words!  No!  What to do, what to do?  I grabbed for a package of word stickers and found a selection that not only fit with the message but even worked with the colour scheme and completely covered up my faux pas - whew!