Cute Critters from Down Under

It's no secret that great fabric makes for a great child's or baby quilt. Designer Lucy Fazely, combined the fun Australian animal themed prints from Kanvas' Down Under collection with a inspired symbolic design to make a quilt straight from the Outback (and no, not the restaurant!).

"Down Under" designed and quilted by Lucy A. Fazely; pieced by Barb MacDonald;
featured in The Quilter magazine February/March 2014

What attracted you to the Down Under fabrics?

The cute Australian critters were too cute to pass on!

How did you choose yellow/gold as the tonal to pair these prints with?

I tried many variations of blues and yellows to make this work and the yellow/gold made the design pop.

How did you come up with the block design? It looks almost like an elongated nine-patch, but not quite.

The block design is based on the Southern Cross (a star constellation that is prominent in the southern hemisphere and is on the Australian flag). I did a Google image search of the Southern Star and worked from there. I wanted the four large stars all the same size, but placed in a formation similar to the constellation - the top and bottom star are almost vertical from each other and the right star is slightly higher than the left star. The best way to do this was to use an original variation of a nine-patch block.

 

Southern Cross image credit

Flag image credit

Why did you choose friendship stars?

The four main stars in the Australian flag are frequently shown with seven points. I played with six, seven and eight point stars - appliqued and pieced. It was the editor's suggestion to use the four point  Friendship Star to symbolize the friendship between Australia and the USA.

What do you envision the quilt being used for?

Initially it was going to be a toddler's quilt. The size changed with the design and it ended up being a baby quilt. Adding Down Under strips for border(s) would make it large enough for a toddler.

Anything else interesting to share about the quilt?

The smaller fifth star was initially planned as an appliqued five point star under the right star. It was talked about including it as a web-bonus to the magazine, but was finally dropped altogether. The good news is that anyone wanting to add a fifth star can do so quite easily.

See the entire Down Under collection from Kanvas here.

Find The Quilter magazine here.