Hey Everyone, welcome back to Story Time Monday.

I have a friend in Australia whom we met when we lived in the Outback. Although neither of us live there anymore she still orders quilts from me for all of her new nieces and nephews. One day maybe she will order a quilt for herself – who knows.

A few months ago she put in an order for another baby quilt and I of course said no problem I can make you one. The best part is I get to create whatever and use whatever colours I wish. She gives me carte blanche which is so cool.

This one was no exception to the rule. I had an idea in my mind and set about making the quilt after going shopping for a bit more fabric to add to what I already had. It didn’t go as planned and I wasn’t happy with it and so I scrapped the idea and moved on.

The second try I used part of the pieces from the first try just cut up smaller. I liked it better but then as the piece grew and came together I still wasn’t happy with it. It ended up being a strip quilt using 10 inch squares from a Layer Cake and some yardage. I was making this at a retreat and everyone else thought it was great. I on the other hand just wasn’t thrilled with what I ended up with and so back to the drawing board I went. It will make a wonderful cuddle quilt.

I went back to the stash and came up with all new fabrics and decided to use one of the blocks I highlighted in the summer on Stash Blasting Wednesday I called the Puzzled Mountain Block. Click the link to see how to put the block together and get cutting instructions for an 8 inch block.

Four blocks together

The fabrics I used were not the conventional baby colours one tends to see but rather very different – brown, yellow/orange, green and turquoise. It had to be gender non specific as we didn’t know if it was a boy or girl. I love the print of lollipops and it is so appropriate for down under because they do enjoy their lollies. The fabric was one from Moda that came out a couple of years ago.

After a bit of playing with the blocks in EQ7 and arranging on my design wall I finally came up with a layout that I liked. Here are a couple of other layouts I was playing with.

A layout option – looks like odd shaped pinwheels

Another layout option – looks like railroad tracks

For the back I used left over fabric and added in an orange where the brown should be and created a large puzzled mountain block for the backing. Doing this is a great way to use up the left over pieces of fabric.

Back of quilt

I was originally going to quilt the piece with Leah Day’s free motion Lollipop motif but then I ended up keeping it very simple. And I do mean simple. Just straight lines across the whole quilt – 2 per row and half inch from each seam. Edge to edge and no threads to tie off. I used a variegated thread from King Tut which matched the colours perfectly.