Maren's quilt, finally finished

So, last we saw the quilt for my niece, I was still doing the quilting. I really wanted to finish it time to give it when we were visiting family during the holidays, since the one for her older brother was done as well. But then of course I added to the last-minute present-making by deciding to sew the baby computer science books, leaving even less time for the quilt. I just can't get these things done with time to spare - that would be too easy. And since I already printed up the quilt labels for the back that said 2011, well, I couldn't make myself a liar by waiting and giving them at some point in 2012!

The last few days before we left town, I did manage to get all of the quilting done, leaving just the binding to go. I had again used purchased binding (from this seller on Etsy), so I didn't have to make that too. The last night before departure, I got the binding pinned on, then packed it up along with my sewing kit. I felt a little bad about the extra luggage, since we have to take so much stuff to travel with the baby. So much for trying to travel as light as possible on my own account! The binding is a nice yellow/cream floral with delicate stripes.


From there it was a certain amount of déjà vu of the quilt for my older niece - I sewed in the car during the times when the baby didn't need direct entertainment (or his toys retrieved from the other side of his car seat where he kept throwing them...). I think in the end I only lost one pin under my seat that I haven't been able to find again. I still had some more to go when we got to my mother-in-law's house, but I was still able to carve out some time during naps and in the evening to wrap it up, and I finished sewing on Christmas Eve morning! I even had enough time that I was able to wash it before wrapping it up. Fortunately I'm a faster sewer than I used to be.

Here's how the quilting looks from the front and the back:



The backing is flannel, which I was able to get on Amazon. I know the pinks don't exactly go with the pinks I chose for the front, but it was just too cute and perfectly on-theme to skip.

You can kind of see all the quilting in this shot - there's a stylized Gemini symbol on either side of each flag.


Maren is only seven months old, so it'll be a little bit before she can form an opinion of it herself, but her mother (my sister-in-law) really liked it. Cord also really took to his - as soon as it was unwrapped, he just wanted to hold on to it, and didn't even want to let his father hold it up so everyone could see. Cord's quilt looked even cozier than it did before after its washing - I'm quite pleased with how the quilting turned out:


Definitely worth the time to make these! Every stage was really fun - designing the tops, deciding on backing & binding and how to quilt them, sewing them together, and of course giving them to my nephew and niece.