At the end of 2023, a new baby girl was welcomed to the extended family: Baby Isabelle Jackson, daughter of my niece Rachel and her husband Court. Happily, this gave me an excuse to create an original crib quilt measuring 49" wide by 53" high. Some history: In 2015, I went to India with two friends on a quest to discover fabric artists in the state of Gujarat. Along the way we discovered the Rann of Kutch's wildlife santuary and stayed briefly at the Rann Riders Resort. On a mini safari we saw many exotic (to me) birds including Painted Storks, a Snake Eagle, black-headed Ibis, Egrets and Greater Flamingos among others. I drew many of the birds once we got back from our trip, and created the bird fabric printed on the quilt back above. Unfortunately I had only taken a little Canon Powershot G15 camera, which was not good enough for great bird photos. The beauty of applique is that I could use my photos as reference to create the stork image on the quilt front. This was done by making an Adobe Illustrator image, which was then used as a template for the final fabric applique design. Many of the quilt fabrics were purchased from Britex in San Francisco with a mix of soft whites, pastel pinks, cotton satins and more. The basic design was created with Electric Quilt's EQ8 software, then modified by accident, or intent, as the quilt was being built. The memory of the trip, bird motif, and the quality of the different fabrics made working on the quilt another level of pleasure.
