I want to keep it.

This is what I've been doing in the middle of the hot humid days lately, instead of working outdoors:

Front

Flutter wheels pattern

It started as an idea along about March, when I found out my brother and his girlfriend (as read about in my post on Easter at this little place here) are expecting a child.  I knew I wanted to make a crib quilt as my gift to them. I wondered what colors I should make the quilt in.  Should I go with gender neutrals like yellows and greens?  Should I do all pastels?  All bright primary colors?  I asked if they had picked out any colors for the baby's room (sneaky, huh?).  They said they were going to find out what the sex of the baby was before painting.  So, I waited to purchase fabric in whatever the appropriate colors were.

Then, in May, they found out they were having a girl.

A girl!!  Wait a minute, I have the only girls on both sides of the family.  Whoa now, that's my domain, sets me apart, makes me special.  Hmm, not sure about giving up my 'Sole Producer of Girls' status.

Then I went to the fabric store and saw the cutest girly fabrics.  Awww.  I'm going to have a niece :0)  I get to join the ranks of those with a little girl to love but who do not have to deal with her hormones.  Yay!  By the time my brother starts experiencing the joy of parenting a storm of emotions, both of my lovely daughters will be grown and out of the house.  Hmmm.  This could be fun!

So I got excited.  And I started cutting out pieces for the quilt top.  240 little triangles.  36 squares. 17 rectangles. 

I sewed them together.  I pulled out stitches on a few of them, lined up the corners better, and sewed them again.  I sewed the triangles into squares and the squares into rows.  The rows into bigger squares.  Then the rectangles and more squares into strips to sew between the big squares.  After each sewing of each piece, there was ironing the seams open and flat before attaching the next portion.

(Yes, this took many hours.)

Then I had to line up and pin the layers together: top, batting, backing.

Back

Then, I had to quilt it.  Because I wanted to really quilt, not just tie it together.  (All the other quilts I've made so far: 2 baby quilts, 4 twin bed sized denim quilts, 1 double bed sized denim quilt, and 1 king sized denim quilt, have been tied rather than quilted).  I had decided after that last denim quilt that it was time for me to become a 'real' quilter and make a quilted one the next time.

Quilting it wasn't hard, as I used the 'stitch in the ditch' method of just stitching over the seams that were all ready there (well, the seams on the squares and rectangles, not the pinwheel triangles).  It wasn't as easy as it should have been, though, because my sewing machine did not like sewing through three layers in mid-day heat (plus it's about as old as I am and really needs some repairs).  I had to stop three times and set a fan blowing directly on the motor to cool it down before I got the whole thing quilted.

But, it's done now.  And it's so stinkin' cute, I want to keep it!

The pink fabric has little purple hearts with green leaves.

The purple is a small print tone-on-tone floral.

The green backing is flannel with boy and girl frogs.