I finally finished my quilt!

Well, I finally got around to finishing the quilt I was making for myself out of the kids' old baby clothes. Looking back over the whole process, I think the most tedious part was actually cutting up all the old baby clothes. I cut around zippers, removed pockets, took buttons off, and had to cut around old "stains" in varying shades and of varying substances. AHEM.

The clothes-cutting took me about a week to get finished with, but only because I did a little at a time. It made my hands hurt and my scissors got quite the workout. I also cut all the logos and pictures from the fronts of the clothes and put them all together to make a big panel. I think it turned out cute, if a little crooked and wonky in places. But that's okay. I managed to make it work in the end.

Once I had my center panel all stitched together, I took the squares I had cut from the rest of the clothing (I also used some blankets and my favorite bibs and burp cloths) and sewed them together. The three-inch squares went together in a nine-patch block, and the four- and five-inch squares were sewn together in four-patch blocks. I took my flat sheet that I was using for the backside and laid them all out like so:

For in between each row of blocks, I made long strips out of blankets. Around the center panel, I used a sweet little green plaid receiving blanket that served as the background in the hospital photos of the Tiny Man. To separate the four- and nine-patch blocks from each other, I used scraps from another blanket and strips leftover from the quilts I made for the kids this year. Even after filling all that space, I still ended up with rows that weren't quite long enough, so I added some scrap pieces from other clothes and blankets to fill in the gaps. Once I had everything like I wanted it, I began stitching together the rows of blocks and laying them back onto the flat sheet backing. I also cut and ironed some strips for the bindings and laid them out, as well. (I know the one on the right is flipped around every which way... I did this while the kids were awake. Brave, I know.)

Once I had the quilt top all finished, I had to make a quick run to Mecca, I mean Wal Mart, for some batting, where I picked up some of those angled quilter's safety pins. I love those things! They're angled in such a way that I can pin through all three layers easily, but I don't have little stick pins all over the place. That can be a hazard around here, with three little crazies running around all over the place. So I pinned and did some quilting and binding. For the center panel and in the center of the blocks, I used off-white embroidery thread to do some hand-tying. But I also machine-stitched along the edges of each of the strips separating the rows of blocks. You might be able to tell from the back side in this photo:
Here's a shot of the back side of the quilt at the corner. I know the bindings don't match, but I don't care.

Here's a close-up of some of the blocks:

And finally, here is the finished quilt, on my bed:

I finished it last night, right before bedtime, so I replaced the two thin blankets with the quilt and it was fairly warm here last night, so I think I ended up kicking it off halfway through the night. I used the same batting that I did for the kids' quilts, and now I can understand why they end up all sprawled out after having kicked off their blankets some nights. It is very warm, so now all we need is cooler weather! I plan to wash this quilt some time today since it still sports some washable blue quilter's marker in places.

Stay tuned for photos of the matching pillows I have in the works! They may have to wait until after the holidays, though, because I have a whole pile of Christmas gifts that need some attention.