Gestation Quilt

For lack of a better term I've come to call this the 'Gestation Quilt'.  Shortly after moving to CA and learning that I was pregnant I wanted to start a project that represented this process of being pregnant, this time of prayer and anticipation and preparation.  So I designed this quilt, comprised of 280 hexagons, each piece of fabric representing each day of pregnancy.  Each side of each hexagon is about 2.5 inches.  The finished quilt is just large enough to cover a twin bed, approximately 4.5' x 6.5'.  It's a gift to my son or daughter and I hope it will become an heirloom that will be cherished for a lifetime.  The bold, primary color scheme also became inspiration for the color palette for the baby's room.  Playful and gender-neutral.

This quilt was so much larger of an undertaking than I anticipated!  The beginning was fun: designing the layout, searching for fabric, finding the right patterns and colors.  I even did some printing and stamped some of the pieces with custom patterns.  All the other steps after that could be described in one term: tedious.  280 pieces, each with 6 sides, all needing to be sewn together.  What was I thinking?  To keep myself on track I had to get on a schedule of working on the quilt for a couple of hours each day.  Every task seemed to last much longer than I anticipated.  Just getting all the pieces stitched together, even by cheating and using a sewing machine, took a month!  After that another week was spent just trimming and pressing the seams in place.  

I also used the sewing machine to quilt the blanket, more marathon quilting for a week or so.  Then I decided to complicate the project even more and finish the edges with a very complicated, mitered binding.  There was no way to cheat that part, it had to be completed by hand.  I went through spurts where I worked on this project exclusively... then I would complete a milestone and take a break and work on other smaller projects.  This was truly a marathon!

There are countless errors, puckers, and inaccuracies in this blanket.  That drives me crazy.  The architect in me knows that in theory all these sides and angles should line up perfectly... it's all math, right?  But fabric is stretched and pulled out of perfection.  My mother kept reassuring me that this small accumulation of errors is what give quilts their charm.  I hope she's right.  Now that the project is done I'm glad I stuck with it and I think it will be well used, as I intended.  If nothing else it looks nice in the baby's room :).