Fox in the Foxgloves Quilt

Some of our dearest friends were expecting their baby girl in early January, and I knew I wanted to make them a lovely quilt as a gift. I really wanted to find some lovely co-ordinating prints to make a herringbone quilt, inspired by some I had seen on Pinterest. I'm pretty chuffed with the result of my efforts:

Fox in the Foxgloves quilt 

My luck was in when I found these fabrics: a bundle of Cloud9 fat quarters from their Fox in the Foxgloves collection by Aneela Hoey. It was just what I was looking for, a nice mixture of different prints, cute and child friendly, but not overly cutesy. Plus I love the colours.

As I didn't give myself much time to make the quilt, and I didn't want to feel "bogged down" by doing it, I decided on a pram sized quilt for our friends. I actually think this size is more useful for a newborn. It can be used as a mat to lie on, a pram blanket or even just to snuggle in.

It really did come together quickly, I only spent 3 sewing sessions on it in all, which I was pleasantly surprised with!

The quilt top's herringbone design is made up of half-square triangles, which was really speedy as thankfully I opted for 15cm squares.

The quilting is stitched in the ditch of the herringbones, with white thread.

I backed the quilt with white cotton and used a thin 100% cotton wadding by Quilter's Dream. I didn't want anything too hot for the little one!

Choosing a fabric to bind the quilt in really took some deciding. I tried peach, mint, navy blue, a combination... and thankfully asked my husband for his thoughts at the critical moment. He's usually spot-on with colour or print decisions, and he said: "Oh, I thought it was just going to look like that. I think a strong colour on the edge would spoil the effect.". He was absolutely right, and when I tried white, the quilt looked much more balanced. Thank you, Liam!

So, in the end I used the backing fabric and folded it over from the back to make the binding. I would definitely do this again - it was really easy!

I'm so pleased with how the quilt has turned out. There are a few less-than-perfect bits (can you spot the 3 squares which had to be laid the wrong way round?), but hey, that's the charm of it being handmade, isn't it?!

We went to visit our friends and meet their baby yesterday, and oh my goodness, she is absolutely lovely. It's so wonderful to watch our friends being parents as well, they are absolutely besotted with their little girl and it just warmed my heart to see. They love the quilt, which I am so pleased about!

I will definitely make another pram sized quilt as a new baby gift in the future, since I enjoyed making this one so much. A smaller quilt is so much less tedious to make than a large one, and much less frustrating the squish through the machine when it gets to quilting time.

In fact, since this quilt used less than half of each of the Cloud9 fat quarters in the bundle, I am already making a sister version of this quilt as a gift for another pair of friends expecting their baby girl soon. I'll put it on the blog if it turns out much different to this one!

Thanks for reading! x

P.S. Here are links to posts about previous quilts I have sewn:
The Scrappy Quilt of Joy   (throw size)
Nautical Chevron Quilt      (cot size)