A finished WIP for the quilter next door

This project has been a hurdle for me. I started this back in September. Of course I only got to cutting it in September and then pieced the top around, oh I don't know, October. My biggest dilemma and what really put me off was when I started to piece it. My fabric would stretch (no I did not cut it on the bias, but I did not know that it would stretch when I started) and therefore my seams would not match up AT ALL. Being a bit of a perfectionist, I did not want to hand the finished quilt over to another perfectionist, and an amazing and accomplished quilter at that! So it sat, and sat, and sat until a few weeks ago when I finally decided to piece the back in hopes that it would motivate me to get it done. Well, that didn't happen either. During this time the recipient went from not knowing what she was expecting, to knowing that she would be having a girl. With that, I didn't want to just hand her a plain-jane gender neutral quilt. So I added the pink Heather Bailey fabric to the design. I also changed the design from the white and aqua houndstooth top with the blue HB backing and yellow binding, to the splash of yellow in the houndstooth top (I had to pick apart a few squares to add that in), pink in the backing, and fun pink, yellow, and teal HB chevron binding. I also didn't use a pattern for this quilt. I sketched it out on paper (several times, I don't know where my scraps of paper end up...the trash maybe?) and had to figure out all my measuremements and fabric requirements. Anytime I decided to make a change (or I lost those darn sketches) I'd have to start again. (Another reason it took me so long to finish.) But I have to say, once I got it done (with one of my tags! I'll post on those later), I was pretty nervous about giving it to her. But since Allison gave me THIS quilt for my baby boy in June after he was born, which I'm absolutely in LOVE with, I wanted to give her future baby girl something I worked hard on so she knows how much I appreciated her thoughtfulness! Delivery was easy, since my kiddo was at her house playing, all I had to do was box it up and walk across the grass to give her the quilt and get my kiddo at the same time!

UPDATE: I JUST finished blogging and linking this post when I realized I made a HUGE mistake in my layout!!! Now I'm REALLY embarrased!!!

I'm linking this post up to A Quilt Story and Stitched in Color