Baby Quilt Delivered

**A quick side note...my post is live over at Jenny's Sew Crafty Christmas Event, so make sure and check it out when you're done here...or now, either way!  ;)  It's an easy-to-do craft you can make with your kids for decoupaged Christmas trees.**

Last weekend I had a baby shower in the town I grew up in for an old high school friend expecting her first little one. She now lives in North Carolina and I live 2 hours away from our hometown, so it was great to catch up with her and a few other old friends.  I finished up this quilt Friday night and we left Saturday morning to drive down for it.  But I consider that a success, because I had time to wash and dry it before we went as opposed to hand-stitching the binding in the car on the way there which I have done before...

So, here it is:

I mentioned before that I used the colors from the nursery set that my friend chose to make this baby quilt.  Even better, the only fabric purchased for it was the green since I needed a specific color and this green is pretty specific.  All of the browns and blues came from stash.  Yay!!  I just cut the coins at 2.5 by 5 inches and sewed together 4 groups of 20.  I chose the strips randomly and just made sure that like colors weren't too close together.

Then I printed the baby's name out on my computer in a font I liked and then traced it on to the center green piece.  Then I just chain-stitched with a brown perle cotton to give it that raised, hand-made look.

For the back, I went more modern (for me anyway) and basically just made another quilt-top.  I really love it and thought it would make a great quilt on it's own, but there you go.  And, I promise it's not so bunchy in real life, I did get a good basting job (with spray-baste, my new best friend) and it was flat before being washed and dried and snuggly.

I quilted the plain green strips with fairly-straight-line quilting and then did more concentric-square (or rectangle in this case) quilting on either side of Corbin's name.  This matched the concentric square quilting on the nursery set.  It's not perfect by any means, but I did it all in like an hour, so I wasn't really going for perfection.  ;)

Plus, I wrote a note to the Mom that this quilt is much like parenting.  It's not perfect and you'll question your abilities and your decision-making often.  BUT, it's made with love and hopefully, it'll all work out in the end.  That's how I really feel about my role as a parent.  I often question myself as a Mom.  I worry that I'm not sympathetic enough, not supportive enough.  I worry that I push too hard, or do too much for them depending on the situation.  I worry that I am not the Mom that they need, but I am reminded by Chris and my Mom that parenting doesn't come with a rulebook.  All I can do is love them and do what I think is best and pray a lot and hopefully all will be well in the end.

I love being able to share a handmade gift with friends.  That way, she'll have a reminder of our friendship with her wherever she is and she'll know that her sweet baby boy is loved by many of us just because we love his Mama.  Handmade gifts are the best, aren't they?