Awwww yeah….my first quilt is finished! 

Took me a while, but man… it felt good to wash it up and lay it on my girl’s bed.  I took my sweet time with this project- I probably worked on it once a week for about 6 weeks.  I chose a fairly easy design and I can honestly say that it came out almost exactly as I had envisioned.  I knew I wanted a lot of white- just to keep it nice and clean looking (though my friend Heather said, “good luck keeping that clean!” She’s right.  So no chocolate milk on your bed, Ellery!!!  Got it??  That goes for your little friend Grant too!).  

I kept the quilting to a minimum, and sewed 1/4″ along side of each seam, which is pleasing to my eyes- I tend to get a little double vision when I see a lot of stitching all over a quilt.  My favorite thing about it is that all of the patches of fabric are remnants from something I’ve made- mostly things for Ell- her 2nd birthday dress, some baby bibs, bed pillows, her skirts, a shirt, pj’s, etc…

Here she is getting to know it a little bit better:

I must say this quilt was not made without some tears.  When I had it all spread out ready to baste, Ellery woke up (way too early) from a nap, walked up to it and just burst into tears…”Why is there blue on my quilt?  I don’t like blue… give my quilt to another little girl!!”  Yup.  So, we had a nice little talk and she agreed to let me leave the blue- as long as there would be pink on the edges.  deal! 

Here she is pretending to be asleep.  Did I mention we sleep sitting up at our house?

After some consulting (thanks Mom, Lindsay, and Aunt Joan! p.s. joan, you need a blog!) I decided to use natural muslin to back the quilt.  Who knew I was hoarding about 9 yards of the stuff?  Anyway, I made sure there weren’t too many strings to show through since muslin is thin.  But, once it was on there and all washed up I knew I made the right decision.  It is so so soft.  Love! 

I also used a pink muslin for the binding- it’s kind of the perfect pink- not too pink to annoy me!  Not too pink to annoy Grant either I guess… he likes to snuggle up in it too.

And so she knows it’s hers and only hers, I hand-embroidered her name at the bottom. 

May she never forget who she is.

I hope this quilt will become as special to her as it was for me to make it.  And I take back anything bad I ever said about quilting!  This wasn’t boring!  It was such a satisfying project to complete.  I even enjoyed hand-binding it- which took me a few hours over a few days to finish, gave me multiple hand cramps, and even a couple of broken needles… 

This was a true labor of love.  You’re the best girl, Ellery….hope it always keeps you warm! 

Now… Onto having this baby sometime soon!

-Erin