A quilt for Maddox

I've wanted to make Maddox a quilt ever since I saw this post on one of my favorite (favorite, favorite) blogs. I knew I would make my baby a quilt but obviously needed to know if I was making a boy or a girl quilt and then I let 10 months go by before I decided to tackle this project.

I decided this would be part of Maddox's one-year present. I wanted to have it made before his birthday and so I gave myself two full months of prep time. Except for that it took me exactly two weeks to finish this. I definitely wasn't anticipating such a short work time, especially because I had zero idea of what I was doing. And I mean, literally zero. I bought my fabric and took it to my mom and she helped me cut it and bossed me around on how to sew it and put it together and we watched a million YouTube videos on how to machine sew the binding and we ripped out one stupid section probably 15 times before we got it right and we yelled at the fabric ladies for cutting my 1/2 yard of binding fabric in the shape of a trapezoid and so it was more of an 1/8 of a yard and barely enough for the binding. But I did it. I sewed a quilt.

I wanted my color scheme to be light blue but let's not talk about how hard it is to find fabrics that aren't floral. And if they're not floral they're pink. I picked seven neutral fabrics in a light blue -- gray color scheme. I cut as many 4.5 inch squares as I could get out of each piece of fabric and then lined them up so that each square had a different neighbor. I don't think seven fabrics was enough and it was difficult to assemble each row and get enough variety without having a pattern overload or a solid color overload.

It took me quite a while to decide on a quilting pattern. I was either going to quilt along both sides of each square or corner to corner in a triangle pattern. When I had everything sewed together and was making the final decision I decided to just quilt along the seams of each square because I felt like anything else would distract from the patterns. I'm so, so happy with this decision. There were a few squares that didn't line up perfectly but I just followed the seam. I wasn't totally perfect but I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who can see the mistakes. ;]

I wanted to do a patterned binding, just like that other quilt (see link above) but it took me forever to find a pattern in a color that would match. I decided on the gray polka dots but the fabric was so uneven I didn't get very much out of it. Instead of driving across town to complain or buy more I just worked with what I had but I do wish that the binding had been a little bigger. I machine stitched it on BECAUSE MADDOX and I'm super happy with the result. I care less about my stitches showing than having a quilt that's falling apart because I had to wash it more than once. I'm just being realistic and also I can't whip stitch to save my life. (It looks a little uneven in the below pictures but that's mostly from me holding onto it while I embroidered my note/needs to be washed.)

And finally, I embroidered a "love mama" note in the bottom. I loved this idea (see link above, again) and wanted to personalize it for Maddox.

I'm so, so incredibly happy with how it turned out. When I bought my fabrics I brought them all home and laid them out to be slightly disappointed with my choices. I didn't love them and was kind of worried that the quilt would turn out to be a hot mess. But as the quilt took shape and came together little by little, I fell so in love with it. The patterns are pretty random and don't make a ton of sense until they're all brought together. I'm so happy with it and so pleased with myself for finishing it!

[And a very big thank you to MY mom who helped me every step of the way and let me use her big fancy sewing machine and let my crafts take over her living room floor and kitchen table and for doing most of the pinning (which is my very least favorite). Thanks, mom!]