BQF - Original Design

Pretty much all of my quilts could go in this category, but I've chosen to enter Nature's Gift:

Like my other entry, this quilt was a commissioned piece. It's close to 84in square; plenty big enough for a queen bed.

The silhouette trees took forever to  mark and cut, but they make the quilt.

I was given plenty of inspiration to work from, and from that narrowed the brief to Australian outback - but nothing too cliche. Hidden in the sky and on the ground are a selection of lesser known Australian native creatures; mostly birds plus a frog, platypus and eastern water dragon.

So we have the gorgeous outback ochres, with some green for contrast, and a small billabong, all beneath the massive blue sky.  The sky is pieced shoo-fly blocks, and the bottom is free-pieced curves.

I deliberately positioned some of the stars in the southern cross on lighter blue fabrics, so as not to make it too overt.

I put the platypus (above) by the water, and nearby there's a nod to bushfires (below).

I chose these echoed Cs for the ground quilting, filling horizontal segments separated by triple rows of wavy lines - it looks just as good from the back:

This water dragon was great fun to quilt, as a special request:

Thank you for visiting. The rest of the quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival original design category can be found here; please take the time to have a look, and nominate and vote for your favourites in all the categories.