Tuesday 21 May 2013

Lucy's Tree


What do you do when a friend would like an owl quilt for their daughter, but they’re not into the real cutesy stuff?

You turn to Saffron Craig of course!

Saffron is an Australian fabric designer.  She makes beautiful 100% organic - soft as butter - fabric which are bright, colourful and definitely child friendly without being too baby.  She hasn't asked me to write any of this by the way – I'm just a stalker big fan.

Saffron Craig - Owls On Trees
I had a few fat quarters of her red Owls on Trees stashed – just because I love it and was waiting for exactly right project to use it on.  Do you have fabric that you love and are a bit scared of cutting into?

So I tried to think a little outside the square with this one.  Instead of just using the fabric of owls in trees, I decided to make a tree out of the owls … are you following me?

These pics were my inspiration.

dontlooknow.typepad.com

lululollylegs.blogspot.com.au/

... and this was the result!




To make the tree trunk I sticky taped a few pieces of brown paper together and free-hand drew a rough tree trunk shape with some branches.  I then traced around this design on some lovely bright fabric to make the trunk.  I wish I knew the name of this fabric, but it was a gift and it didn't have any of the printed selvage on it – if you know the name could you please mention it in a comment?  I need a “shazam” app for fabric swatches!

For the owl tree foliage I decided to fussy cut the Saffron Craig fabric using various circle sizes – small kitchen plates etc.  I just cut around the ones with the red backgrounds as they were.  They are slightly oblong shape, so it gave a nice variation to the perfect circles.


Once I had a layout all set for the trunk and owl shaped foliage I used HeatBond Sewable to iron all the pieces in place.  I then used a machine blanket stitch to sew around every piece.  

This took ages … glad I decided not to do it by hand!


The quilt ended up being a single bed size, so I had to send it out to my fav quilter to do.  She helped me choose a lovely flower pattern that matched the floral design in the tree trunk and boarder fabric.

Voila! One owl quilt for our little friend Lucy.


PS I don’t think this owl fabric is available at the moment, but I’m sure if you search Etsy or Ebay someone will have a little stash for sale … or perhaps you could try a similar design with the Kookaburras in Saffron's Banksia Bloom fabric range.

Sx


5 comments:

  1. Gosh, it looks good Serena xxxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's amazing! I love that owl print but it's hard to find in the UK, I bet she'll really love it! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love, love this!! You should send a pic to Saffron Craig. I'm sure should would be delighted to see your imaginitive quilt made from her designs.

    Diane

    ReplyDelete

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