Baby Quilt Progress aka Photo Dump

We wanted to share an update about the quilt that Bethany is making for our future son or daughter, which will have everyone's name on it who prayed for us or donated to us! (There is still time to be added :-) !) As it turns out, work + life + adoption paperwork doesn't leave much leftover time for quilting. But despite the lack of posts about this project, progress has been made :) Slowly but surely! We are still on track to finish the quilt as a "welcome home" gift for our child. (.....unless we get a call, say, tomorrow...just sayin!)

So without further ado, here's the status of the quilt.

Getting the strips ready - fabric is cut into strips, sewed side by side to other strips, and then cut vertically into still other strips. Those multi-color strips of blocks are what are sewed together to become the squares. Trust me, it's not as confusing as it sounds!



Sewing with Mom, an excellent seamstress and my trusty guide:





Piecing and ironing a few squares (months ago, obviously!):



Sewing with Dan's mom during her New Year's visit:











I think it's really special that both of our child's future grandmothers had a hand in the quilt!

Here's what the quilt top looked like a few months ago - four rows, twenty squares (not all sewn together - most of these are just laid side by side):



Here's what the quilt top looks like as of this morning (again, mostly just laid side by side) - all five rows. Oops! Clearly one square still needs to be sewn! Haha. I didn't realize that was missing until I laid it out. Our living room rug is the backdrop:




And finally, here is the fabric we picked out for the back of the quilt. This is where we'll list all the names of everyone who has supported us during the adoption:



We liked the star motif - it fits with a quilt used for sleeping (starry night, etc.) and also with the idea of wishes and dreams that's also evoked by the dandelions on the front of the quilt.

So there you have it! The next steps are to finish that one square, buy fabric for the borders, attach the borders, and then it's time to take the quilt to my aunt to be quilted together. In the meantime we can start adding names to the back fabric - we may do some before and some after the actual quilting, and leave space for other names. We have SO many to add, thankfully!