A long time comin'

Three things happened this weekend that seemed like they may never happen.

One:  we're on the other side of all our winter bleh.  Everyone has been sick and yuck and now we're done.  Almost.  Baby boy has a tinch left but it will soon be gone.  OH yes, it will be gone.

I finally finished my Pink Elephant Quilt!   I knew I wanted to do hand quilting at some point in my life.  So I made a little baby quilt and went to it.... 3 years ago.  It kept getting pushed aside and I finally brought it back out recently. 

Yep, all hand quilted and I really love it.  The stitches feel so good.  It has a great texture.

I actually started this before she was born.  She's three now.  Oy.

The back is half pink chenille and half pale pink cotton dots.  I appliqued and embroidered a little polka dot elephant on the back.   Yes it's my favorite animal. 

Lastly, I finished my sister-in-law's quilt!  Woo hoo!  This didn't take quite as long as the elephant quilt but nearly a year.  So embarrassing. 

So the sorority symbols are pink carnations and crescent moons.  Well how could I let a chance go by without getting that in fabric?

The carnations were easy enough.  I actually found two and used one for sashing and a lighter print for the border. 

The moons however were a pain. A very expensive pain. I did find ONE repro print that wasn't baby-ish and it was about $10/yd. I really wanted it for the backing but not that bad. I chose to buy a yard and use it as the binding instead.

I think that's where I got off-track with this quilt.  I so badly wanted the moons for the back and kept wringing my hands about the cost or if I could find any other moon fabric out there.  I couldn't.

 I quilted each t-shirt square with matching thread and then used gray in my bobbin. All the squares were the loopty loos except the mish-mash square at the bottom right where I combined 4 pieces to make one big square. I did each quadrant in a different FMQ. Here is my rockin' pebble stitch. What a great texture that has! But I don't think it would be fun to do an entire large bed quilt that way.
 

It is super duper long.  Get it,"A loooong time comin'"?  My sister-in-law is tall but not 7 foot.  Hopefully it is still well-loved and received anyway.  My husband called it the 'rob' quilt because of the Greek letters.

Good-bye, Rob Quilt. 
One quilting resolution done!