Just A Little Birthday Gift

One of my closest friends Maria had an upcoming birthday in May so I decided to make her a quilt. I had started quilting when I was pregnant with our kiddo because I thought it would be fun to make a baby quilt. Keep in mind I had never used a sewing machine in my life and I am a perfectionist...my little man's quilt turned out great and I had also made two other baby quilts for some other friends so when I spotted this Graphic 45 themed fabric I immediately thought of Maria! She was on the Graphic 45 design team last year and the fabric was one of her favorite lines. So I thought to myself "Sure I can bang out this queen sized quilt in a month!" Since her birthday was in May I figured starting in March would give me plenty of time. Ha ha!

This specific fabric was so busy that coming up with a design concept as well would have been a little out of my reach so I just followed one of the patterns from the fabric designer. My first step was to cut everything out, I am not going to lie this took me a few days. :) There was a lot to cut! Don't they look all pretty lined up together?

Once I had all of my pieces cut I made all the block for the center of the quilt. These took a little less time and I was able to piece them together in two days, around 4 hours of when the kiddo was napping. I hadn't tried out this particular block before so it was a fun learning experience.

This is what they all looked like after I finished trimming off the ends. Sorry for the poor picture quality, I took the picture at night.

Once I had all the blocks assembled I gave myself a mental high five thinking I'm making a ton of progress. Then I decided to lay the block out of the floor before I starting sewing them in strips to piece together. When they were all placed out on the floor in front of me I realized how huge this monster was going to be and I had a ton more work left ahead. This was the point where I started laughing hysterically and sent Scott who is Maria's husband a text with the below picture. 

Next up was piecing the block together in strips. Again I was amazed by my quick skills, it only took me about 5 hours to put them all together. I'll admit at this point with all my hard work the thought did cross my mind to keep the thing. lol Sorry again for the blurry photo.

Once I had the whole things pieced together it was time to quilt it. This part I find the most time consuming because I check and double check to make sure there aren't any wrinkles in the fabric and then I pin all the layers together. Of course I have to have all my pins evenly spaced and all facing the right direction! :) At the end of this step my fingers were hurting from the darn safety pins, I think I used around 150 of them to sandwich everything together. 

Once I quilted the whole thing it was time for the binding. This process has to be done by hand so I normally watch a movie or four while I'm doing this to make the time pass quicker. You can't see me working on the binding in this picture but I just thought the colors were so pretty with my pin cushion! ;)

Finally in August I had this monster put together and it looked awesome! The colors and patterns look amazing in person. 

Here is a picture with a little peek of the back of the quilt. I love the peachy color of that fabric!

All in all it took me 6 months to finish this quilt, but there were large time stretches in which I didn't work on it because I didn't have the time. I wrapped it up the day before Maria was headed up for a visit so I was able to give the quilt to her as her belated birthday gift! Here she is with it!

She was so excited to see it when I gave it to her which made me happy because she is always making the most beautiful gifts for her friends and family. Seriously check out her blog, she does!