Snug as a bug

My sort of Christmas themed neonate mini quilt ...
  

 















I have a lot of white narrow strips of fabric, mostly left over from trimming quilts.  So started playing with a selection of red, orange and lime green fabrics cut into smallish squares with even smaller white squares on opposite corners like this ...

After sewing what seemed to be a rather lot of squares with even more to go to make a 27" square quilt something was needed in the middle.

The something was a ladybug, although here in New Zealand we call these ladybirds.

The fabric had fusible ironed on and then cut on my Silhouetto Cameo cutting machine.  

The shapes and letters were fused on to a square of white fabric that had another layer of fabric to help stabilise the applique.  






Using a straight stitch, stitched around the letters 3-4 times.  The bug has a mixture of straight stitching and blanket stitch.
  
 

There was one false start ...

When I cut fused shapes I've been placing the fabric side down on to the sticky carrier mat as I've found it is easier to peel the pieces off and it seems to cut better.

Using the mirror image is a bit more useful.










 


Final layout.  

I kept the quilting simple with cross hatching around the bug and the words.  Each white square was quilted in the ditch, while a little bit time consuming the end result is what I wanted.