Safari Stars

Dear Readers,

A couple of weeks ago my daughter called and asked me to make a baby quilt for a couple at her office that does NOT like color.  My first thought was how on earth does someone make a baby quilt with out color.  After I thought about it, I went shopping in my stash and I found a neat fabric that I had bought a few years ago to make a stack and whack quilt for my nephew, as I thought he was into zoo animals, then I found out he wasn't so I made a different quilt for him.

I was originally going to do a stack and whack quilt, but then decided to make a wonky star block with a fussy cut animal from the safari fabric that I had in my stash.

There were eight different animals in the print that were suitable for fussy cutting at 5 inch squares.

So then I cut 8 white squares for each block and various black fabrics for the wonky star points.  After I made the 8 blocks I was going to make a heart within a star, but it did not look right so I put a black and white print on the four corners.

I was originally going to put 2.5 in strips for the sashing and cornerstones, but I sent a photo to my daughter and she thought it should be wider, remember the blocks are finishing at 13.5, so the normal sashing did look a little undersized.  I decided to string piece the sashing using my blacks with white prints.  I had seen Bonnie Hunter do that with neutrals.  That really set everything off and I made them wide enough to finish at 3.5 inches.  Decided that it needed a border around the whole thing, so I cut a border out of the safari fabric and used it around the whole thing.  That made the quilt finish at 63 inches square.  I like that size for a baby quilt, as it is big enough for them to use till late into childhood.

I quilted this on the long arm machine at Bernina Sewing Center in Ridgeland, MS.  It sure does make that go fast to get something like that quilted in a small period of time.  I did have a couple of tucks get in the back as I forgot to attach the side clamps.  I guess that is what happens when you only quilt on a long arm once every few months.  I whipped stitched the creases down and because that would make them less noticeable.  I used the same animal print on the back and it is so busy it does not show at all... but I still hate that it is there.

Hope the baby loves it and uses it till he or she is too big for a small quilt.

Sew long,

Terry