'Over the rainbow' baby quilt

This quilt has been finished for a while but it's taken me ages to get photos of it.  It's a very special quilt for a very special person, my son's key worker from nursery.  She has just had a baby (well 3 months ago now so I'm a bit behind!) and my son had just moved on from nursery to school so I wanted to give her a special gift.  She is such a lovely person and we felt so lucky that she was our son's key worker, and friend, for the past 2 & 1/2 years.  The inspiration for this quilt was one I saw on london_and_granger's instagram.  If I had been making it for me I'd probably have gone for similarly bright colours but I knew that the mum this is a gift for likes to wear a lot of blue and denim so I decided to stick to a more muted colour scheme.

Leah Duncan fabric

Leah Duncan fabric

The starting point for the quilt was the beautiful Leah Duncan bird and rainbow prints from the No Place Like Home collection.  I knew I wanted to stick to mostly blues but felt the pale peach went so well that I had to add that in.  Asides from the dark blue chambray and the pale peach, which I had already, all the other fabrics were bought from M is for Make specifically for this project.  The backing is the last of a beautiful blue/white striped double or king (I can't remember which) John Lewis cotton duvet cover I got in a local charity shop.  I also used this to back this a quilt for my son which hopefully I'll get photos of soon! The binding was a roll of chambray binding one of my lovely friends gave me and it matches so perfectly. It's the first time I've used shop bought binding on a quilt and I must say it did speed the process up a fair bit not having to make the binding! As usual I used the attaching double fold bias binding tutorial from Purl Soho.

I used the hst tutorial from Suzy Quilts as a reminder on how to do half square triangles and cut them as 9" squares as I had just bought a 9" square quilting ruler so it made for nice and easy, and quick, cutting out! I did draw out the layout beforehand, though I altered it slightly when I put them all together.  Does anyone ever stick to exactly their initial plan with a quilt? I know mine always end up changing throughout the process of making!

quilt design plan, with multiple changes added/scored out etc!

 With shop bought bias binding, a 9" square ruler, and chain piecing, this quilt top was pretty quick to put together.  The quilting took a bit longer though as I couldn't decide what, or more precisely, how much, quilting to do.  I took the question to instagram and The Littlest Thistle had some very good advice - check the batting instructions for advice on how far apart the quilting lines should be, and try and anchor all the squares evenly.  I should have taken some indoor photos of the back of the quilt so you could see the quilting better but I found some earlier photos I took of the front of it so hopefully you can see it there.  I'm very pleased with how it's turned out. I love this quilt so much and my son did too, I hope it is well loved in its new home.