My First Quilt Was a Challenge

<----My nephew Noah Napping with his grandma in his new quilt . Well I first say sorry I haven't posted in a couple weeks. I had no idea it had been so long! I don't know if many people even read this, but I got caught up with all kinds of business the likes of which I can barely remember. It is a blur, but I ended up flying to California to stay at my parents and visit with my brother, sis-in-law and nephew for his 1st bday party on the 28th. My bday is on July 3rd so we celebrated together. For Noah's bday I really wanted to make him a quilt but I had NEVER made one before. THose of you who are familiar with the process know it's not for the weary. I waited too long to make it as I was busy (as previously mentioned) and I had about 2 weeks to throw something together. I had fabric in mind for it and since I am a total beginner I used this very simple pattern from about.com to started. I used the diagonal pattern and I wanted to use sock monkey fabric, banana print, brown paisley for the backing and the sock fabric print for the border. After I got all the squares together using my serger (as some quilters do not recommend serging a quilt because of accuracy, I was too busy to worry about that stuff!) I realized that it was going to be huge, so I cut off about 5 rows of squares on the bottom entirely. IN the end it was about 36" square. After that I attached border strips using the sock fabric print, and then "bagged out" the quilt to finish it easily rather the more fancy, accurate way of finishing. I figure Noah may end up dragging this thing around anyway, so accuracy was not too important, and serging was important for durability. Quilting it was a challenge as I could barely fit all that stuff in my sewing machine and still sew straight. You must need a special foot for quilting but I was too flustered to even look for one, I just had at it on my regular little Brother sewing machine. I quilted the quilt in diagonal lines for easiness and to avoid highlighting my sometimes, inaccurate seams by not "stitching in the ditch". I bought my first cutting mat and rotary cutter for this project, they were on sale at Joann Fabrics 40% off so that was good enough excuse for me to get one. I have to say, if I cut all this with scissors it would have taken MUCH longer! Cutting all the pieces was the most tedious part of it. Ironing and sewing the patches was the next hardest part. I did little parts at a time. I cut one day, sewed the front another, sewed the backing another, and layered/quilted the last day. IT was necessary as I have no patience with myself. Overall, it's a cute quilt! Not perfect by any means, I would have liked to have the bananas on the backing and the paisley where the bananas are in hindsight. But there was no way I was gonna tear that thing apart and start over again! I also made Noah a sock monkey, I put it together in the car while we drove to the Seattle airport (1-1/2 hour drive) so it was very, ahem, home-made looking. I didn't get a picture of it but you wouldn't be impressed anyway.