I had every intention of writing today's post all about my beautiful Garden Party Quilt which makes me smile from ear to ear every time I see it... but alack! The quilt wadding and quilting threads I ordered NINE days ago still hasn't arrived (despite delivery estimates of approximately 3 - 4 days!) from The Cotton Patch.

And so, last weekend, I had to start something new.

This is the Animal Alphabet Quilt pattern from Don't Look Now. I bought it at the Festival of Quilts from Creative Quilting - a fantastic quilting shop based in Surrey. I can't wait to have a free Saturday so we can take a drive down there! Anyway, back to the animals. There was a made-up quilt on display which looked incredible, and I knew straight away that I wanted one.

I wanted one.

For myself.

I know, I'm selfish like that.

















Here are my alligators. They're made from Moda Basics green dots, Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms Delhi Blooms, and a charm square of Moda Marble in lime.

The pattern is fantastic. Each animal is made up of layers of appliquéd fabric, and you can trace it directly off of the A3 pattern paper onto Bondaweb/Heat 'n Bond/applique transfer iron-on stuff.

















The Bondaweb lets you get really accurate cuts - new favourite sewing accessory, ever.


















These are my butterflies. I cut these out of Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms Sari Bloom and Riley Blake's Woodland Tails Dots. The letters are cut from Moda Marble basics.

















I'm really looking forward to stitching these down! You're supposed to free-motion the edges, but I'm going to use a satin stitch instead. I'm not brave enough for free-motion in colour cottons just yet.

















This is what I've chosen for the binding: it's from the Amy Schlimer Animal Party Too range. Some of these fabric ranges have odd names.

I am going to carry on with this as an "in between" project because it's so easy to pack away. I have all of my cut-out animal shapes in a ziploc bag, and I'm using up lots of scraps and remnants on the appliqué shapes, yay.

And, hopefully, my wadding and threads will arrive some time this week so I can finally get started on the much-awaited quilting-binding-stitching-free-motioning-stencilling extravaganza that is the Garden Party Quilt!