Hayden's Quilt

Hayden is my soon to be nephew, he is due on December 16, 2010. My thinking is that every baby needs a baby quilt and I could not pass up the opportunity to make my first nephew a quilt of his own. Hayden's quilt is a flannel tumbler block with minky fabric for the back and it is echoed quilted.

I started Hayden's quilt during my two week summer break from night college, after I finished my dad's NASCAR t-shirt quilt. I finished piecing Hayden's quilt at the end of September and with the help of my husband, we pin basted it shortly after. I began quilting it October 2nd, determined to have it finished for the following weekend. Within 3 short days the quilting was finished. I was so excited to get the binding on and have it ready for the baby shower, but that didn't happen. With my brother's wedding in the same weekend and the preparations for the shower, the quilt was the last thing to get done. The day of the shower, there were lots of last minute tasks that I needed to get accomplished before the guests arrived.  My husband went to church after we said goodbye to my aunt and uncle, who were staying with us for my brother's wedding, I put aside prepping food and sneaked into the basement.  I started putting the binding on Hayden's quilt. Luckily, I already had the binding strips done and all I needed to do was sew it to the quilt. Within the hour I had it sewn on the back of the quilt and was ready to sew it down to the top of the quilt. Using a decorative stitch, I started sewing, and after a foot of sewing became frustrated. I was determined to finish the quilt so I kept on sewing and got one side sewn down. To my horror it looked awful! I was so upset that I walked away, and went back to prepping food for the shower. My husband came home from church and helped me finish getting things together to bring over to my mother-in-law's house. I told him what had happened with the quilt and started to cry! I was called a stubborn son-of-a-gun, and then he asked if it could be fixed. Of course it could be fixed, I just had to rip 45 inches of stitches out without tearing a hole in the quilt or binding and avoid all of the adjacent quilting stitches! He told me to work on it while he got things together to go over. Time ticked away and it was getting closer and closer to 3:00pm, the start of the shower.  I was frantic, as I had wanted to give this quilt to my little sister, that day.  My husband had been telling me all along to just box it up unfinished, show it off at 95% complete, and tell her she would get it back in a few more days. He came to the rescue and said, "show me how to rip the stitches out and I will finish it for you while you host the shower." Reluctantly I did, after many promises that he would be extra careful. We arrived at mom's house, unloaded everything and both got to work.  He sneaked into the garage and ripped out all my failed stitches. It took him over an hour to do it, but I was so grateful!  In the end, Hayden's quilt was proudly opened and shared at the shower with the binding half sewn on, for me to finish before he is born. AND SHE LOVED IT!!!

Hayden's Quilt