Another Friday Finish

Yay!!  I am finally done with the 4 baby gifts I had from...December.  Yikes!  But dealing with a loss of sewing mojo can set a girl back, you know.

As I mentioned before, this quilt is for a dear friend of mine that lives in the UK.  She and I worked at a summer camp together here in FL more than 10 years ago, and our families became close and we have remained friends despite the distance.  In fact, Kirsten was at both my and my sister's weddings.  I couldn't think of a nicer friend and family to be my UK connection.  :)

So, this quilt is for her sweet little girl, Daisy.  I went with red, white and blue to represent both of our flags and our connection to each other and wonky stars because they're plain awesome, but also because they are graphic and have the connection to the US flag as well.  Other than a restock of some Kona Ash, this entire quilt came from stash!!

As far as quilting, I originally planned to do a looping meander with a FMQ flower (you know, because her name is Daisy...) thrown in every so often for fun and even did that on two blocks before I decided that I really hated it and ripped it all out.  It took SO LONG to rip it all back out, but I knew it was the right decision.  I'd started too tight and the quilting was taking over the quilt instead of being in balance with the design.  Instead, I outline quilted around each star and then used my embroidery machine to do the big flower between each block.  It was a free design that came with my machine and it fit perfectly in the space.  I also used this design on Emma's lunchbox over the summer.  And as I did on her's, I considered using two threads (red/white and then white/blue) to make the flowers to tie in the colors, but I decided to just go with the gray.  I like how the gray tones it all down and makes it a little more calm.  Plus, gray is a little easier to keep clean than an all-white background for a baby quilt.  ;)

Ooh, sometimes closeups aren't flattering...let's pretend that awesome flower is centered over those seams, 'kay?

I bound it in a red dot from Connecting Threads.  Their basics can't be beat.  I like how the pop of red sets it off and frames it very nicely.

I'm happy with this quilt and even more happy to do be done with it.  All baby gifts for the time being are checked off the to-do list and I can get started finishing up some other projects.  :)

I hand-embroidered Daisy's name to the center square with embroidery floss I had on hand.

Finishes feel great don't they?  I'm linking up this finish to Amanda Jean's Finish It Up Friday party.  Head over to check out all of the great links of amazing things people are finishing up this week.

Have a great weekend everyone!  Oren's got teeball games tonight and tomorrow morning and Em's got her first game tomorrow morning too...at the same time 20 minutes away.  Oh well, there'll be plenty more and I'll give her big hugs of encouragement before she and Daddy go.  What do you have in store this weekend?

P.S.  This afternoon started our Spring Break.  I've got big sewing plans on the agenda...we'll see how it pans out.  If you don't hear from me you know I'm too busy playing Mommy!