Do you remember Babar the Elephant? Babar the Elephant made his debut in children’s literature in the 1930s, then television and films in the 80s and 90s. I personally didn’t see too much of Babar. As a toddler I enjoyed Ernie from Sesame Street, Care Bears, and Clifford the Big Red Dog to name a few.
I was commissioned by a department at work to make a Babar baby quilt for their co-worker who’s expecting this December. The sweet illustrations of Babar the Elephant were brought back to life by Camelot Cottons in recent years, but are now out of print. Finding the entire collection is a bit of a challenge, but you can still find some of the prints from online shops and Etsy shop owners. I decided to focus on one main fabric, which worked perfectly with the Baby Bubbles pattern, a free download by Michael Miller Fabrics. The pattern was a breeze to work through and I added baby’s name among the appliqued bubbles.
*Apologies for the dark pictures. I photographed this quilt at night with lamp lighting.
I backed the quilt with a stone grey bubble minky, which continues the theme and adds a cozy softness. Originally, I was not going to put batting, thinking the minky would provide enough thickness. In the end I decided against this and added the batting for extra weight and warmth. This was also my first time quilting with minky. I’ve made some whole cloth blankets using minky and sewing around the perimeter, but even then the material can be a little tricky. For this quilt, I followed some tips by Allison Harris on quilting with minky.I taped down the minky, right side down, on the CLEAN kitchen floor first. I then layered on my batting and quilt top. I basted the quilt with pins, starting with the perimeter, every 2″ to ensure the stretchy minky stayed in place for quilting. After pinning the perimeter, I continued pinning the rest of the quilt with a little more spacing. I quilted with a straight line stitch on the diagonal. My favorite part of this quilt is the vintage tie print of red diamonds.
A sweet little quilt stack…
I finished up this quilt at the end of October and have been working on my cross stitch this month. Check back tomorrow for my SAL Update and see how my Winnie the Pooh is progressing 😀
Petals and Pins 
That’s beautiful – well done. I remember reading Barbar in 1970s when I was little – the moomins too
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much! I was hoping to warm some hearts with those who read Babar as a child 🙂 Now, I’ll have to look up moomins!
LikeLike
Moomins 🙂 – I loved them. The lady who wrote the books had a really interesting life (I don’t remember that I learned later she was Swedish) also loved asterix the gaul too – brilliant puns – it was one of first things I wanted to know when I met a French lady was ‘were there puns in French too?’ I read tintin too but didn’t like them so much…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I looked up the moomins, they are pretty cute 🙂 Haha, I see you enjoyed comic book illustrations growing up. I remember taking the Sunday funny page from the newspaper when I was a kid and cutting out my favorite strips. I would then tape them into a spiral notebook. I wish I held on to it! Would have been fun to look through again.
LikeLike
I did that with snoopy cartoons 🙂 yes lots of comic books – I read lots of books too (swallows and amazons – didn’t like Enid Blyton – loved fantasy books like far away tree). I was a v poor sleeper so my mum taught me to read when I was v little (also we have light evenings in south of England) so I’d just have to stay in bed reading if I couldn’t sleep.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love the reds with gray and the center of quilt as well. Lucky baby will be warm.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m always nervous to quilt with reds, but the color catchers always show bleeding from other colors like the grey. But yes, the red is very beautiful! Love that binding 🙂
LikeLike
I loved Babar! Great looking quilt. 😃
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! 😊
LikeLike