The Zahra Quilt

Close friends of ours recently welcomed a baby girl named Zahra and this quilt has recently flown around the world and arrived in London for her to enjoy.

You might remember I shared a this work in progress post a while ago.

When I started this quilt, I really wasn't sure about how it would end up. Normal situation for me - I've never made a quilt using a pattern, although I would like to. I seem to just work organically and start with a preferred colour scheme and go from there.

The quilt design is loosely taken from the Candy Coated quilt from the book Sunday Morning Quilts. It's probably my favourite quilting book at the moment because it's all about quilting with scraps, and the way the authors put the quilts together is really my style - working with colour schemes and working with what is already available in your stash.

While I like some children's prints, I have started to avoid them when making baby quilts. I feel like there is more longevity in the life of a quilt when the fabric is not necessarily baby-centric. Certainly not true in all cases, but it seems to be the direction I'm moving in when making quilts. Maybe it's because I've moved on from the baby phase now that my children are getting older?

I backed this quilt with a lovely Cloud 9 organic herringbone print that I bought from Spotlight. Not quilting weight cotton, but because it was on a wider roll I was able to use just one piece for the backing rather than piece it. Win. A single piece quilt backing is definitely a preference for me.

The quilting is a simple loop-de-loop free motion design. I really enjoyed the quilting process on this one. The loops were simple and the look of the pattern is great. It was also a good method to keep my free motion skills up and learn to manage and control the quilt under the machine. I wear dish washing gloves and I find the rubber grip really helps keep the control of the quilt without straining or hurting my hands and wrists. I know you can buy special quilting gloves, but hey, the washing up gloves work a treat. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I originally bought an aqua stripe for binding but wasn't sure about it. After asking some opinions on instagram and in the previous post about this quilt others suggested what I had been feeling - the stripe was too bold. There is a lot going on with the mix of prints in the quilt top so I ended up binding with some Kona Ash grey solid that I had in my stash. Love the outcome.

Enjoy Zahra! I hope you roll around on it, crawl off it, snuggle under it, and in future years make forts and tents with it, have tea parties with your toys on it and read books on cold winter days under it.