a quilt for pepe

Our friends recently welcomed their third precious little girl into the world, a babe with a head of dark hair and adored by her two big sisters. They named her Penelope Rose, or 'Pepe' for short. And I made her a quilt.

One of my new years resolutions was to make a cot sized free motion quilt (inspired by the likes of Corrie). Well I couldn't find the needle to exactly work with my machine for some free motion action, and seeing as though I was fairly new to this whole quilting game I thought I'd play it safe with some straight lines.

I'd attempted some quilts before, all have been unfinished and some even disastrous attempts at 'stitching in the ditch' (what was I thinking?!) This quilt had to be unisex as our friends weren't finding out the sex of their third bambino. I chose some organic cotton solids and funky jungle inspired prints of bright hippos and giraffes, seeing as though this family actually do live in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. 

I made strips of various blocks the width of a standard cot size, then sewed them altogether until I reached the required length. I backed the quilt with a simple linen and quilted using a contrasting white thread. I tried to keep the quilting as simple as possible with a 1/4 stitch each side of the horizontal seams.

Once I was finished quilting I must admit I was running seriously short on time before I was going to visit Miss Pepe - so I hotfooted it over to my mum's armed with the quilt and some white bias binding. I knew Mum could bind the quilt in half the time it would take me, and with about a thousand times the quality of craftmanship. Thanks Mum!

Ok so my first (finished) quilt isn't perfect, there's a few bumps and bruises, but it's handmade and I think that makes all the difference. Doesn't it?? It's made with love, a fair few hours of cutting and pinning, as well as a few choice words when I was quilting it all together and stuffed it up a few times! But mostly love.

I hope Pepe likes her quilt and gets to snuggle it, roll and play on it. I had fun making it for her :)

Have you been making anything lately of the quilting variety? Are you a quilting novice like myself, a seasoned pro from way back or have you just dipped your toe in ever so slightly?

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella