Vanilla's Baby Quilt

Those of you who follow me on instagram are probably already aware, but Vanilla arrived last week! My strategy was to eat so much food on Thanksgiving that she was pushed out of the womb. I am thrilled to report that it worked! And lucky for me, I (mostly) finished her quilt, just in time.

The adjustment from a family of five to a family of six has been relatively painless, and the challenges have been expected ones. I look forward to seeing how Vanilla continues to fit into our family.

As you can see, I didn't get around to handstitching the friendship stars. I may revisit that at a later point. Or not. I think I'm going to wait and see how different my life is with four kidlets before making a firm call on that.

This is A LOT of quilting for me. I know this is like regular quilting for many people, but for me, oh man. This is crazy town. And I have to say, for the first time maybe ever, I really enjoyed all of that quilting. I really enjoyed the thought process. Maybe it's an instance of finally feeling like I kinda know what I'm doing? Or maybe it's just that I cherished every part of the making of this quilt?

This quilt is scrappy down to its core, but I made sure it had some cherished favorites. OOP Tula and AMH, shot cottons, even some batik scraps. The backing is a Heather Ross strawberry print with a couple of scrappy strips to bring it up to size. Not gonna lie, I was pretty pleased to use up some of the gypsy wife strip scraps that have been sitting in my scrap bin for ages. I hoarded this HR print for ages, originally planning to make myself a skirt, but it's a much better fit for this baby.

Has this quilt made my top five quilts of all time list? Um, yes. For sure! I adore how this quilt turned out. A wild explosion of pattern and color and randomness with a hint of order--even that description doesn't quite make sense! But these are the best sort of quilts for me.

This is finish #3 from my FAL list. Admittedly, I'm a wee bit behind where I wanted to be, and I can't see myself making much progress over the next month, but I also kinda expected that. Vanilla will be my big finish for the quarter.