It’s always fun to make baby quilts and right now I’m making the most fun baby quilt ever.

It all started when I took a class at Quilt Con Together. Jo Avery was teaching her Journey to the Centre of the Earth block. I’ve always been bad at improv and this seemed to be a compromise as you design the block and then FPP (foundation paper piece) parts of the block. It was fun but also very hard and I had to watch the class twice to get a hang of the technique. Once mastered, though, it was incredibly liberating. I made one 12.5″ block and turned it into a cushion.

As I was doing the triangles/spikes I thought they look a bit like monster teeth. That was it, my imagination ran wild and this is what it came up with:

Isn’t that a fun quilt? I tried very hard to not make the monsters scary and I really hope I succeeded. The first monster I did was the green one, then the orange, yellow and purple one. I have to admit that my favourite changes all the time but I think it must be the yellow one. He looks a little worried and quite shy, I think.

As I was deciding what colour to do the last monster (I had planned on making a blue one but realised it would blend too much with the background), I laid the blocks on the floor and Holly became the fourth monster, even showing teeth. She was actually meowing at me, telling me she was hungry and to get a move on and feed her.

In the end it was my daughter who said that the last monster should be purple and I think it was a great choice.

I’m waiting on some basting spray as I want to try spray basting for the first time. I always like trying things out on small pieces and a baby quilt is perfect in that respect. For once I actually know how to quilt this, I usually struggle with it and often quilt in the ditch or echo quilt, but this time I’m going to have a sort of grid in the centre and leaves in the border. The monsters will get a bit of quilting in the ditch to emphasise hair, horns, teeth, nose and eyes but might also get some texture.