Project: V's Baby Surprise

Well, this quilt is for a dear, sweet friend who has gone through a lot. I feel so blessed to know her. She always waits to find out the gender of her babies until they are coming out. So, we picked this gender neutral baby quilt. I've been DYING to do this kind of black and white quilt so I was excited.

And here is the fabric I chose... (can you tell I've been WAITING to do this one?)

And this as the backing:

Pieces all cut- So, I looked at the photo from my pinterest account and figured the aqua squares were about 1/3 the length of the black/white blocks. I made the aqua blocks 2"x2" and the black/white blocks 6"x6" and the white sashings were 2"x6".

I laid it all out on the floor. I tried so many different ways and came up with this. If I tried to scatter them so the same colors would never touch, it never worked so I decided that if the same colors were going to touch, I might as well make them in rows. I hope she likes it....

I chain pieced this into a quilt top quite quickly. I sewed each row of blocks into a whole row and then pressed seams. I then sewed each row of sashings to a row of black/white row. I always keep it laid out on the floor as I go to make sure I don't sew the wrong rows together. I alway sew 2 rows together until the end and then each set of 2 rows together and then into one big quilt top (I hope that make sense).

We decided to keep the quilting in a clean, modern touch by doing straight lines. First, I quilted on the inside of the sashing rows all the way down (about the width of my presser foot), starting in the middle and working my way out to each side vertically and then did the same thing for the horizontal rows:

I then quilted around the inside of each black/white block (again about the width of the presser foot):

For the binding, I went ahead and cut 2.5" strips of the black/white fabrics that I used and did that as my sashing. I think it turned out well:

Front view (before washing):

Back view (before washing):

Front (after washing):

Close view after washing/drying:

I think it turned out beautifully. It took longer than I thought but mostly because last week we had a MAJOR heat wave (of over 90 degrees and with no a/c it was TOO uncomfortable to quilt or do much of anything for that matter and many dr appointments for me and my family). I started it around June 23rd and worked on it for about 5 days (not consecutively). I hope the new baby enjoys it (although we wont know if it's a boy or girl until October). 

Oh, the finished size was near a 40"x40" square. :)