pink hazel hedgehog | Night Quilter

I went easy on myself this month for A Lovely Year of Finishes (ALYoF) and set my April goal at finishing the quilt top for my sister-in-law’s baby shower yesterday. I made a totally pinkalicious Hazel Hedgehog quilt featuring a giant sized hazel and a fun heart speech bubble I created just for this project. Did I meet my goal? Yes!

hazel hedgehog flimsy finish — Hazel Hedgehog “Hello, Love” baby quilt flimsy finish.

Even with the heart speech bubble addition, I was able to finish the flimsy (quilt top) before the baby shower. Since I finished this flimsy in the midst of a rare “full mommy sew day” when my mother-in-law took the kids for a play day, I decided to forge ahead and start basting and quilting little (giant) Hazel.

After a particularly late night and early morning quilting/binding session, I managed to quilt the entire background and speech bubble, AND make and attach the binding. Normally, I would complete all of the quilting before binding, but since I really wanted a presentable quilt for my sister-in-law Stephanie’s baby shower, and since the unquilted portion is completely enclosed in quilted background, I decided to get a little cheeky and bind the quilt before completely quilting.

quilt wrapped nicely — The purple bag with pink tissue and ribbon on the left contains the quilt.

With the quilt bound, I was able to roll it, wrap it nicely in tissue paper and a ribbon-bound bag, and gift the quilt with no worries of fray.

gorgeous spring baby shower gifts — Spring baby shower gift table decor–so alive!

My sister-in-law LOVED it, so mission accomplished! Even with a few basting pins still in Hazel and the heart, which will be quilted as soon as the color matched Aurifil thread arrives, it was fun to get to give this gift. Just think: hidden behind this quilt are two big baby bumps–cousins destined to be rolling around on top of this fun quilt (Stephanie is due a couple weeks after I am).

I will share more detail photos of the quilting and finishing in a later finish post once the quilt is completely finished (this will help keep the fire lit under my bum so that I actually finish it before baby time!) But for now, here’s a closer look at the speech bubble heart I’m calling “Hello, Love”. I’m planning on writing up a pattern for this block, since it’s such a perfect block to add to any of Elizabeth Hartman’s giant creatures, and I could definitely go for a speech bubble heart pillow!

I’m linking up with the ALYoF April Finishes Party, as well as Monday Makers and Design Wall.

The giant version of Elizabeth Hartman’s Hazel the Hedgehog pattern goes together quickly! I thought that it might, but I’m pleasantly surprised by exactly how quickly I was able to get this adorable pinkalicious hedgehog together. I cut the fabric for this project on Monday, and after only two short nights of sewing (a total of just under 3 hours), Hazel is complete!

She finishes at 24″x27″ since I have not yet put the borders on. She’s huge! Here are a few photos of Hazel with my kiddos for scale. Don’t mind my sword-bearing super hero son; he’s harmless, really!

I want to use a single giant hazel, but have the baby quilt finish a bit larger than the 34″x37″ baby quilt version in the pattern. Since I’ve pieced Hazel so quickly, of course my brain immediately came up with a lovely idea of how to make it super adorable (and not as quick to finish).

sketchbook plans for hazel layout — Glimpse into my sketchbook.

Originally, I was planning to add borders to have Hazel in the bottom right of a 48″x52″ baby quilt, with simple negative space/background around her. Easy peasy. There is actually a good chance I could have the quilt entirely finished by the baby shower on Sunday if this plan is chosen. Then, as I was sketching it out to calculate how big the borders should be, I thought an appliquéd heart in the top left would be a cute touch, which then progressed to a pieced speech bubble heart. How adorable would that be, though!? This is how my brain works, folks. If something is easy, I will immediately find a too-cute-to-ignore way to make it more complex (but awesome).

What would you do? Stick with the original, adorable, but super simple and easily completable-ahead-of-schedule plan? or try out the speech bubble heart idea? Only time will tell which I will choose!

I’m linking up with Work in Progress Wednesday hosted by Lee at Freshly Pieced .