It might not be cheaper than therapy, but it's a LOT more fun

I've been sitting on my hands for a couple days....I wanted to post pictures of my last quilt project, but I hadn't delivered it yet (I'm not entirely sure if the Mom who bought the quilt reads the blog or not).  Well, I got up bright and early this morning to deliver it and now I can share it with you!  Yay!

Mom C. has an adorable, happy, 1-year-old boy.  When he was born last March, she picked out some very colorful bedding for his crib.  Months later, she happened to find a second set of the bedding on e-bay.  She gave me the second set in December with instructions and measurements for a quilted wall hanging.  While the project took much longer than I had planned, I'm thrilled with the results....Mom C. loved it as well.

This is the final product:

Mom C. will be hanging it on the wall behind the baby's crib.

The brown satin loops were taken from the crib bumpers.  They were the ties that would hold the bumpers to the crib.  She had so many of them left over, I set them out in a woven pattern and thought, "pillow!"  I mentioned that idea to Mom C. and she seemed interested in it.  Hopefully she'll give me a call....that's a project I've never done before, but I'd love to try!

And, yes, the little red stitching you see is all done by hand.  The separate squares are stitched together on my machine.  Cuz, hello?  I do not have the time or desire to do all of THAT by hand.  Plus?  In case you haven't heard, I'm an anal retentive freak and I have to have my seams exactly perfect.

Once I have the 3 layers together, however, I do my quilting by hand.  This, quite frankly, is my favorite step.  It gives the project an old-fashioned touch.  I also find the repetitive in-and-out motion of the needle and thread to be very calming.

I've tried machine quilting....not only is it very bulky to push all of that fabric through a machine, it's nearly impossible to get a consistent stitch.  And when it comes to my projects, I am ALL about consistency.  My little red stitches are uniform, yet imperfect enough to lend a homemade look to the final product.

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And last, but not least....I had to include this shot.  I nearly fell on the floor laughing when I pulled it up on my computer.  See if you can figure out why.

I can't be expected to hold the quilt AND take the picture, can I?