Quilt, done and given away

I worked on this quilt off and on for what seemed like forever. But it is finally done. And the friend that I gave it to finally stopped moving around so I could hand it off to her and her baby.

I want to get faster at quilting so that I can make these things for more of my friends and still have some time and sanity left over to make a quilt or two for our house...

But enough about my sanity. Here are some photos:

For scale

Hiding the fact that I'm wearing sweats...

Crinkly goodness

Quilting patterns on backside

I can't get enough of how crinkly soft it was...

I learned so much while doing this quilt. It was the first I did with half-square triangles, the first with rounded corners, the first that I machine quilted, and the first time I tried my hand at free-motion quilting. Whew. A lot of firsts. Oh, and it was also the first quilt that I've given away. Like I said before, I hope to get better and faster at this quilt-making business so that I can start giving these away much more often, so I'd better get better at saying goodbye to these things...

The best thing about giving it away? Seeing the reactions. Little did I know that there was a long history of quilt-making in their family, on both sides. Both my friend and her husband were touched by the quilt, and they made me ridiculously happy when they noticed all of the random details in mine. There was talk of just using it as a wall quilt, but I say, put that sucker to use! That's what a baby blanket is for, right? For snuggling and crawling and drooling on. Am I right?