Battenburg Cake Baby Quilt

I finally learned to take a few more pics as I go through a project. Moving on from the colour-run disaster of the first quilt, I have started another.  This one might even make it as a gift for someone...

There was a sale in Spotlight.  $1 fat quarters - I had to get a couple.

The yellow was quite busy with all the coloured flowers so I picked a pale pink solid to go with it.  I cut them into 2 and half inch strips and made six little 9-patch blocks.  

I was advised not to frame them in white as it would make the yellow and pink look 'washed out'.  Clearly, I ignored that advice - sometimes you just have to go with a gut instinct.

Still wanting to do something with the elephant template I made a while back, I decided this was the time for some appliqué.  I made some blocks with elephants and some with flowers.  

The shapes were traced on to double-sided bonding paper and bonded to the wrong side of the pink / yellow fabric before bonding again on to the white block.  I then used a small zig-zag stitch in pink around the outside of the elephants and flowers. The pink elephant also has some decorative stitches for the eye and around the head.  I got a bit carried away...   

Then stitched them all together to make the centre panel:

I then added some pink sashing and a pink border to break up all that white and ended up with a finished quilt top.  The backing is alternate pale pink and lemon blocks in keeping with the Battenburg cake look.

cake.....not quilt.

This is where we're currently at after basting and pinning.  No idea how to quilt this but I've just revisited my last blog and the list of things I supposedly learned from my last quilting experience.  I'm already regretting making the cake-style backing because I didn't get the seams to nest exactly in the centre (again), even although I lined it all up and pinned them in place! note to self: keep the backing simple.  Hey, at least I pre-washed all the fabric this time :-)

This photo doesn't really do it justice - it's so pretty and very girly.  2 of my friends already know that they are having girls so I'm hoping that it will end up good enough to give as a gift once I've been let loose with the walking foot.  I'll post some updates when I get there...

*UPDATE* - So this is the trouble with adding fancy stuff to the middle of the quilt where you have to start quilting.  What was I thinking?  I tried quilting over the top of an appliquéd elephant on a practice block a while back - it didn't really work out so I tried going around it - that didn't really work either... This time I decided to stipple around the elephants - it looks ok on the front but the back will have big spaces where the elephants are.  Didn't really think that through, did I?

Another update: I have now finished this quilt and was pleased with the front until a bird left me a little message all down the front while it was drying on the line.  After the second wash, some of the appliqué started to lift. where I had just caught the very edge with the needle - it frayed back too far past the stitches so I had to do some repairs to the pink elephant and it now looks a bit rubbish...

More photos - pre birdie accident. This actually isn't a great pic in this light...

And the back...

Lessons learned:

• Keep the back all the same fabric until you're better at piecing and quilting. 
• Try just quilting right over the top of that appliqué to avoid any gaps on the back. 
• Definitely don't try to machine the binding on.  This one was machined to the front of the quilt and hand finished at the back.  Took ages but the results were so much better than previous attempts to do all of the binding by machine. 
• White backgrounds are ok :)