Blogger's Quilt Festival + Castle Peeps quilt

• I just found out about the Blogger's Quilt Festival and it's pretty awesome! To enter, you have to blog about a quilt you've made. I'd like to talk about the quilt I made for my son.

  
  

  

  
  

  The obvious inspiration for this quilt was my handsome boy (I apparently only know how to make this photo gigantic or tiny; I chose tiny):

  
  

  

  
  

  I made this for his first birthday, which was October 9th, but couldn't resist giving it to him as soon as I finished it. Before this quilt, I had really only made 1 other serious quilt (I made 2 awkward baby blankets before that that had my "unique" interpretation of what binding should be, and I doubt they're even still in one piece now). This was the first time I bought fabrics because I truly loved them and not just because they were on sale. I wanted everything about this quilt to be of the highest quality too so I bought Gutermann cotton thread, Kona Ash and Coal for the backing and binding and Warm and Natural batting. These were all the names I heard a lot.

  
  

  

  
  

  With this quilt I really learned how much patience pays off. I really took my time making sure everything was cut and pieced perfectly, and I think it definitely showed in the end. Everything went together so much more easily too (no forcing seams together). I also hand-stitched the binding, which I hadn't done before. I discovered that I actually enjoy sitting down and stitching at night. It was nice to be able to bring my work-in-progress with me to bed and work on it while watching TV or a movie. I also really prefer the look of the hand-finished quilt.

  
  

  

  
  

  I also pieced the back of this quilt (hadn't done that before) and was proud of the little design I came up with. I bought 6 different prints of the blue Castle Peeps fabric, but the pattern only called for 5. I really wanted to use them all though and this specific print seemed to need it's own space. I don't think it would have been so nice cut into small pieces in the quilt top. So this little broken panel idea worked well. Sometimes I think I like the back of this quilt more than the front (I really fell in love with Kona Ash for a neutral solid)!