Working with Flannel - a super quick quilt.

This quilt was something of an experiment and an indulgence. I had wanted to try out sewing with flannel, particularly after reading this post from Katy at I'm A Ginger Monkey. And I'd wanted to use some of Thomas Knauer's fabrics, after following his blog without realising he was designing fabric for a few months (god love me, but I'm slow upon occasion). Then, luckily for me, friends of Paul's were having a baby due in November. The perfect reason to try out these things!

I bought a bundle of fat quarters of Savanna Bop in flannel from the Fat Quarter Shop, and added a half yard of the yellow elephants and green vines so I could make a flannel backing to the quilt as well.

Cheerful and interesting, nice.

I decided to go super simple, and just halved each fat quarter, took one of those halves and cut them in half again. Then built up the quilt with alternating long and short blocks. The two half yards and a couple of leftover blocks made the backing. I cut and sewed the whole lot together in a day - which is super, super speedy for me.

Instead of stitching in the ditch, my default when I want to be speedy and not take any chances, I decided to quilt on either side of each seam about 1/4" away. This would have been a brilliant idea if I'd not just cut each fat quarter in half and half again, but actually measured and squared up the blocks. Hence the lines get a bit skewy in places... but the baby won't mind, right!?

Here is is pre-wash, casually slung so as to disguise not-so-straight seams!

The flannels were super soft and lovely with which to sew. I spent a lot of time stroking them. And they frayed a lot less than I was expecting! I will definitely work with flannels again, just interested now to see how they hold up to repeated washing. It washed beautifully for me, once I'd bound the quilt in Kona lime.

Proof of loveliness, and a partially clear sky in Ireland in mid-December!

And so I have a finish to report this week :) And baby Georgina will have a Christmas present. And I have managed to make it ok for myself to experiment with flannel, Thomas Knauer, and add to my fabric stash!! Win all round really.

Plus I have little blocks of the flannel left over, and I will at some point (post-Christmas) have to make some of these burp cloths by Cloud 9 Fabrics! Bonus points!!

I'm linking up this week, for the first time, with Link A Finish Friday and TGIFF :)