Quilt Project - Hippos, Giraffes, and Elephants, Oh My!

Last week I was browsing in the fabric store and came upon this fabulous Michael Miller print ("Zoology"). I normally am not attracted to bold colors, particularly for baby quilts, but I was overwhelmed with this cuteness:

My "go to" pattern for large prints (in this case, directional) is the Double Irish Chain pattern from the Quilts from the Quiltmaker's Gift book. It's a really easy project; I cut and sewed the patchwork in one afternoon, and then sewed the blocks together and added the borders in an hour or so the next day. I also like that it uses 3 fabrics, and depending on how you place the fabrics you can have three quilts that look entirely different. I am annoyed I ran out of the animal print - I should have known I would need a bit more because it's a directional print. I am hoping the bolt will still be there when I go back to the fabric store!

You know how the Amish say that only God is perfect? Well, I realized once I saw the photo (below) that I should have added another row on the bottom...oh well, c'est la vie, non? I found a tiny bit of turquoise fabric in my boxes and made a small folded border, and frankly it would be such a pain to rip out that I'm leaving it as-is. This is destined to be a baby quilt for a cousin of mine, and I doubt the baby will care that there should be another row.

What I really, really find fascinating about this is that from far away, this looks like some old, exotic Indian print. It's actually quite startling. In addition to a black solid (oh, the cat hair....) I used a multi-colored dot print (also by Michael Miller), which doesn't show up too well here. But trust me, it's fun and funky.