Technicolor Giraffe Quilt

I finally did it.  I decided that enough was enough, and I made myself a blog.  Here is a brief snapshot of my life:  My husband Brad and I have a beautiful (nearly) 11 month old son named Simon.  We live in our 150 year old home with our two cats (Ollie and Walter) and puppy (Henry).  I'm a children's counselor at a local mental health agency.  In middle school, everyone had to take Home Ec.  There was a sewing unit, and I HATED it.  Fast forward 10 years to Christmas of 2010.  I decided I wanted to make my husband a quilt as a Christmas gift because unless I am buying him electronics, he is super hard to shop for.  My mom helped me put the quilt together, and I haven't stopped quilting since.

I know lots of pregnant people at the moment.  I'm not really a "buy you a gift off your registry" type of person.  Maybe that makes me a pain in the butt to invite to any type of showers, but I say tough noogies to that.  Anyway, I decided I wanted to make a quilt for one of the momma's to be I know.  I have been on a string quilting kick and decided a giraffe would make an exceptionally cute baby quilt. 

I started by drawing out a simple giraffe silhouette on regular computer paper.  Once I was satisfied with the drawing, I transferred it onto a stabilizer I found at my local fabric store.  I found it easier to roughly cut out the shape of the giraffe so I didn't end up sewing a lot more than I needed to...normally I over sew and have tons of left over to trim off.

Now came the fun part.  If you aren't familiar with string quilting, it is super fast and easy.  You can go ahead and put your ruler and rotary cutter away when string quilting.  There is no need to measure or have even strips or be consistent in any way.  I, like many quilters, have a big box of scraps that I save for just in case.  Just in case what? Um, string quilting, duh! I got out my big box and got started. 

I started at the top; however, if you start in the middle, you can sew two strings on before running to the iron.  Anyway, string quilting is a lot of trips to the iron, but it does go fast.  I suppose if you aren't fussy about things laying flat, you could finger press.  You sew the strings onto the stabilizer and press as you go.  Lines do not need to be straight. There is no need to trim back the excess fabric.

Once I covered my whole giraffe image, I cut it out and appliqued it onto a solid gray fabric. This was my first ever applique project.  I have to say it was easier than I expected.  The only tricky part was the sharp corners.

Normally the back of my quilts are pieced because I don't think the back of a quilt needs to be boring.  However, with the small size of this quilt, I went with a plain black back.  I used a simple all over stipple for the quilting. 

Not too shabby for the first quilt I have ever designed.  More Katy Lakes' originals to come.  Also, check out my Pinterest for more pictures of my projects.