Snuggles & Cuddles

This quilt was a commissioned piece for a baby who arrived a few days ago. I made one for her older sister a couple of years ago. (Hmm, my style and my quilting ability have evolved significantly since then!)

I've already seen a photo of the newborn snuggled in her quilt; I do love seeing the quilts I've made in use! One of my best friends sent me a photo of her two children under theirs the other day, too; it made my day!

Snuggles & Cuddles is named for May Gibbs' the gumnut babies featred in the four fabrics in the border (above and below); Snugglepot and Cuddlepie are the two best known, although they don't actually appear in these prints.

For this version of my tree quilt, I adapted the shape of the tree, as well as enlarging it a little, to make it a little more like a eucalypt.

I also changed the leaf shape to match eucalyptus leaves.

The gum blossoms were a bit of an experiment (I blogged about the process here)

As usual, the applique (apart from the blossoms) is done with machine buttonhole stitch. Then I quilt closely around each shape using matching or slightly darker thread; I add the central leaf vein at the same time. For these I used a variety of thicker (mostly 40wt) threads, including King Tut and some generic machine embroidery threads.

For a bit of variety, I quilted the background of the tree in a swirl design. I was really pleased with how well this worked; not only did I manage to keep it even and consistent, but it's not as dense as my usual tree fillers, which will work better for a bassinette quilt.

The border was quilted in a simple meander, as the idea was for it to be barely visible. Both the swirls and the meander use Superior's BottomLine threadtop and bottom.