Noah's Ark Crib Quilt

Judy's modified Noah's Ark crib quilt pattern by Little Quilt's

Little Quilts patterns have consistently offered fun, simple, striking designs especially suitable for scrap piecing.  This vibrant medallion style quilt caught my eye about ten years ago.  I pieced the checkerboard borders a few years ago when I was working with my black and white fabric scraps.  Last Friday I got serious about completing the top within a week.

Here's a photo of the original pattern on the cover of the booklet.  Although it isn't a great photo, hopefully you can see what changes I made to simplify the look.  I stayed fairly close to the original design but I used a sunflower fabric to replace the four pieced star blocks at the corners of the vines.  Another substitution I gleefully incorporated was replacing the time consuming appliqued berries? with red buttons.  I had exactly the right number in my excessive button collection!  And instead of appliqueing the fabric leaves flat to the tan border, I sewed them as 3-dimensional leaves, securing them to the tan border fabric by machine stitching the leaf veins only, thereby allowing the leaf edges to be free.  I'm not sure I saved any time or effort with the leaf modification, but I like the look immensely.

During my internet search to locate the above photo, I discovered Connie (of Connie's Quilt Creations) who also posted a photo of her version of the Little Quilts pattern of Noah's Ark.  She didn't modify the pattern which enables you to view a closeup of the original idea... particularly the pieced star corner blocks, which I believe are meant to signify flowers.  Connie's photo shows basting thread in preparation for hand quilting.  Mine will be machine quilted.

For the sake of the photo, the buttons are pinned in place but won't be sewn on until after the quilting is completed.  I'm not sure when that will be?  But at least I can enjoy knowing the top was completed in four days while making good use of my scraps.  Another UFO in a drawer bites the dust!