Baby quilt season

So, it seems that almost everyone I know is pregnant.  I definitely have many baby quilts in my near future.  One of my best friends from high school (we're not super close anymore unfortunately) was due this month and I knew I wanted to make her a baby quilt for her little one.

I texted another friend to find out if Becky was having a boy or a girl, since I wanted to quilt to be a surprise.  (this was on a Tuesday)  Stacey immediately asked if I was coming to Becky's shower... that weekend... in my hometown, 5 hours away from Pittsburgh.  Well, I didn't know about the shower until that moment and thought for a minute about how I would like to give the quilt to her in person.

I worked like crazy to get the quilt finished in time for the shower on Saturday and shockingly was able to finish it Thursday night.  I didn't sleep much that week, but it was worth it to get it finished.

Since Becky was having a little girl, I was able to make it super cute.  I chose a pale pinky/purple for the main background color and used up an adorable hopscotch fabric in the same color.  I quickly made a single single girl ring (the original plan was to make 4, but because of the time crunch I only made one).  This was my first time piecing curves, but because I didn't have much time I wasn't able to agonize over it too much and just jumped in.  To my surprise it was much easier than I thought!  (Maybe now I'll have to courage to finish my king-size single girl quilt).  I improv pieced the rest of the quilt top.

For the back, I wanted to make a larger version of the Valentine's block I saw on Flickr.  This part definitely took the longest - cutting out so many little 2" squares, laying them out, and piecing them all together.  I finally finished up this part of the back late late on Wednesday.  Thursday evening I finished improv piecing the back of the quilt, basted it, and quilted it.  I really wanted to FMQ this quilt but the reality of time made me reconsider.  I was able to hand-sew the binding on Thursday night.  Whew - what a week.

It was worth it though to be able to give her the quilt in person and catch up with Stacey that weekend too.