Project No. 4 – A Day on Safari in Indiana.

Shortly after I started working on No. 1, I found out a good friend of ours was expecting her first little one. Months later, I heard baby boy and dark green/cream nursery and got to work. Having used precut fabric squares on No. 3, I decided to forgo the endless cutting and chose precuts again. While searching for baby boy nursery fabric, I came across the CUTEST safari collection and knew it was the one I was picking. I purchased what quilters call a Layer Cake (pack of 42 10×10 precut squares) meaning I got 2-3 squares of each different fabric design in the collection. I chose to keep the size of the precut as is, but added a 1” variation strip on one of the four sides of each block. It’s a little further away from the center than I originally intended, BUT it’s still the overall feel I wanted and was super easy to put together. Because the fabric is so busy, I wanted the quilting to be understated. I quilted in a straight line right across each diagonal axis of the blocks. I put this one together in just a couple days and it was ready for the prewash. Prewashing has bifurcated the quilting community and everyone has their opinions on it (to do it or not to, what to use, how to prevent fabric bleeding, etc.). I used the salt method to prevent bleeding and tossed him in with less fear than my previous quilts. When it came out of the dryer, no fabric bleeding (YAY) but I did have a seam come partially undone (BOO, <insert curse words>). I headed to YouTube for ideas on how to fix it and came across a video that explained these things happen, especially with precuts (OK. Lesson Learned). She gave a number of ways to fix it without it being visible but then said she usually top stitches right over the top of that seam and calls it a quilt kiss. Perfection is a lofty goal when you’re first starting out and one undone seam doesn’t mean the quilt is garbage. I top stitched a few times over that seam which means that one will likely NEVER come undone again. As a newbie, I so appreciated the idea that an imperfection doesn’t have to be a negative. It’s a handmade item and we as humans aren’t perfect, so why do our creative pieces have to be? Plus, if you’re looking at the quilt you can’t tell where it is unless you’re searching for it, so quilt kissed it was and it will be loved just the same by this new baby boy when he arrives.