Welcoming Maria: Day 2

Wow, that came together really fast! It took me less than an hour to finish the top today.

(4' x 4')

When I'm working on this quilt I can't help thinking about when we might have a second baby. Ideally I'd like to be pregnant right now, as a matter of fact, so our kids are about 2 years apart. But with the job market this year, and starting a new job next year, the timing just isn't very practical. I want to be able to take a few months off with our next baby, like I did with Katie, which would not be possible if I were due next summer or fall--right in the middle of moving to a new city with new doctors and changing to a new job with new insurance and such. So we'll wait. Hopefully we'll be able to have another baby sometime around Katie's 3rd birthday.

The fact that the quilt came together so fast may be God's way of telling me to stop thinking about it so much.

I found a pastel jungle print that will go with the room and works with the quilt. I think. I'm still debating on just using a cream or white muslin. The jungle print may be too busy. I had really hoped to find a soft flurr or faux fur or such to do the back, but the washing instructions were pretty tedious and I'm all about practicality here. Plus the color options were terrible.

For the quilting, I'm tempted to use the 25 green blocks to do alphabet blocks, doubling up Y&Z in the last block. I'm not sure if I'd want to embroider those or just quilt them for a more subtle effect. Or quilt them in a colored thread, like a brighter green or a pink. One large pink area will have "Maria" and her birthday embroidered into it, but I'll wait until she's here to be sure the name and date don't change. The large pink diamonds will probably have concentric diamonds quilted into them, unless inspiration (or readers!) strikes with a more interesting pattern.