Finish it Up Friday 3

Hello there bloggy friends!

I have not fallen off the face of the earth.

There are probably a few disappointed folks out there in the world. ;)

It's just been a  busy busy week here!

I've been working crazy hours (it's a good and temporary thing) and trying to squeeze my life in, in between. So, this week the blog was neglected.

Plus a lot of rain made it difficult to take pictures. (Not that I'm complaining. Please say a prayer for those out west experiencing wildfires and that crazy heatwave.)

Nonetheless, I am back to finish out the week. 

I hope that my American friends had a lovely Independence day. If you are/were a service member, military brat, or military spouse, I would like to thank you for your service and sacrifices. (Family members give up a lot, too.)

If you are not an American, I hope that your July 4th was a nice day. ;)

So.....onto the FINISH!

Yay!!  That baby quilt is finally done!

About time, too. I got her first birthday invite in the mail last week.

Whoops!  

At least she's not 18, right? ;)

It did give me a lot of time to pray for baby and family, which is kind of the point.

So, while y'all have really only seen pictures of this quilt coming along for about a month (and I'm sure y'all were saying to yourselves, is she going to do anything else already?), this quilt was a good year (?) or so in the making.

Yes. I know. Ridiculous.

Let me explain a little.

I am a super newbie quilter.

This is my SECOND QUILT EVER (huzzah!).  (First one can be seen here.)

I do have finished a couple of other quilt tops that are just patiently waiting for some other items to be completed first.

So....about a year ago (yeah, since she's almost one), I started this quilt. Buying the fabric, deciding on how the pattern would go, so on and so forth.

I learned how to do a half square triangle (HST).

Let me stop there. 

HSTs really aren't so hard. But they do require some degree of precision. And, well, I didn't really have that then (for a lot of reasons...crappy sewing machine, impatience, and I now own a quarter inch foot, which is a-MAH-zing).

So, I sewed a bunch of HSTs and they looked like crap.

This is not my usual...oh, I wish they looked better.

No, these would have looked terrible in the quilt. Quite literally (and that is not the figurative use of the word literal, which is kind of a weird phenomenon in our culture, but I digress...).

So, I set them aside and worked on some other items. Many of which are still WiPs.

Someday. Someday.

And I broke up with my sewing machine.

The backside of the quilt. It's just a preference thing, but I like the backside to look complete, too, and not haphazard.  If you like haphazard backsides, more power to you. :)

 So after I finished the first baby quilt, I looked at these HSTs again and started ripping them apart.

Which took this side of forever.

 (By the way, I think these two babies already have an arranged marriage. Just kidding, kind of. Their moms would LOVE that. ;) )

Then, I re-sewed them, squared them up and just kept going.

Mr. Gardener helped me with the placement of all of the blocks. He's a sweetie, isn't he? (I learned some good lessons about value in this quilt, but I think I will save that for another day because this post is getting kind of long. Thanks for hanging in there!)

Here's some of the quilting, which happily improved as I went along (yay for skills progress!). I just did a very simple cross-hatch, but I think it works well with the design.

As a result of this ripping, squaring up, etc. business, the blocks were much smaller than I originally intended. In fact, I originally intended for the pinwheels to be the whole quilt!

So, I pulled my Michael Miller Dinky Dots in Grey from my stash (I LOVE this print. Why? I don't know. Just do.) and made a big ol' border. And I quite like it.

I also made a square quilt instead of a rectangular one. (Well, technically a square is a rectangle - though not all rectangles are squares - but you know what I mean.) 

More quilting. You can see a little meandering and so on, but I'm pretty proud of myself overall.

 But, I must say, that by happy accident, I think I like how it came out better than the original design.

The binding is a scrappy mixture of fabrics left from the pinwheels.

Mr. Gardener helped take pictures.

Then he got weird and said I couldn't take pictures of him.

So, naturally, I just had to. Muahahaha.

Isn't he cute?  

I think so.

************

So...Quilty Stats!!

Fabric: 

-Stained Glass in Light Pink by Dear Stella

-Savannah in Blossom from the Karavan Collection by Valori Wells

-Jenean Morrison Silent Cinema Iris in Pink for Free Spirit Fabrics

-Vintage Ironwork in Khaki from Secret Garden by Sandi Henderson

-Garden Pindot Blossom by Michael Miller Fabrics

-Mod Vine in Rose from Modernology by Art Gallery Fabrics

-Art Gallery Hyperreal Garden Radient Bouquet in Ruby

-Art Gallery Coquette Flirt in Power Grey

-Too Muchery Damask in Steel by Helen Dardik

-Circles in Light Greys from Downtown by P&B Textiles

-Nancy Mims Pick a Bunch Organic Flower Burst in Orchid

-Mingle Polka Dot in Hot Pink 

-Michael Miller Dinky Dots in Grey

-Random Pinks from Joann's

Pause: I will never use just random fabric ever again. It turned out okay, but it just didn't play as nice as the other fabrics. Turns out there is a significant quality difference. Unpause.

Quilting:

-Grey Guttermann thread

Binding:

Scrappy leftovers of the above-mentioned fabrics

Size:

I think it's 55" by 55", but I need to measure to make sure.

Then it will be wash, iron, and off to the postman!

Thanks for sticking through that long post!! :)

Linking up with Finish it up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Also linking up with Molly and Carly.