What? No pink?

Yellow and grey are not colours you've come to expect in quilts made by me. 

Pink, yes. Lots of pink. But hardly ever grey and yellow. In fact my journey of making this precious gift was very much the road less travelled. I'm excited to finally reveal it here, though it has been a rather poorly-kept secret for the last few weeks. 

This quilt is for a young friend of mine expecting her first baby next month, but of course Eeyore and I couldn't resist sharing the odd sneaky peek on the 'inter web' now and then.

A thoroughly modern young mummy, my friend and her husband have decorated their house in a sophisticated palette of black and yellow, so I went with a toned down colour scheme of yellow, grey and white. All of these fabrics, bar the daisies, came from Spotlight.

For those who've asked me, most of the grey and yellow fabrics belonged to this range.

That cute Winnie the Pooh print (also used as the backing) sadly doesn't have a maker on its selvage.

Once I had sewn the strips, alternated with fresh white, into three columns, it was time for the real fun to begin, the machine quilting! 

The obvious choice would have been something geometric, possibly parallel lines, but these days I like to surprise (even myself sometimes!). I quilted giant cross-hatched bubbles, and gave the parallel lines a supporting role as fillers.

I quilted in the daytime...

... I quilted in the night, when the artificial light showed up the texture of the quilting.

And, as the sun set slowly in the west, on the last afternoon before the baby shower, I photographed my finished quilt in my very favourite location, at Di B's home beside our magnificent Sydney Harbour. 

So blessed to have such a generous friend who will let me drape my quilts all over her sea wall, garden seat and lawn.

The late autumn sunshine and shadows seem an entirely appropriate setting for this little quilt.

I backed the quilt with the Winnie the Pooh fabric, and added a label with my prayer for this little bub. 

It looks a tad sparse since I had to leave off two important details - the date of his birth (still to come), and his name, which I didn't know at the time. But I do now.

It's Atticus! And I love it.

{I want it known that the random seagull in the pic below was not photoshopped in, nor did I even see him at the time. It was entirely accidental, and it makes me smile, both as a quilter and a photographer :-)}