In pulling together these quilt-progress posts, I discovered that I’ve been lying to everyone* about my quilt progression.

It’s my nephew’s fault.

November 2009, a few days before Thanksgiving, my brother sent me a text message announcing that they were having a boy. Then he sent a second text warning me that I wasn’t supposed to know anything yet, that he has been too excited to keep quiet, and that I would wait until our family was together to officially hear the news.

On the drive down to Tennessee, I stopped in a few small towns and started collecting fabric for a manly baby quilt.

Of course, at this time, I’m still assembling The Hex Quilt, and I’m fairly obsessed with it, so I don’t do much more than dream about manly fabric progressions until I finish piecing the quilt top.

I decided to make a Stacked Coin Quilt, a fairly common starter-quilt pattern.

January 2010: Snowpocalypse! After finishing one monstrous quilt top, I immediately dove into a new project. This one, I resolved, would take less time.

January 2010: The most significant difference between hand-piecing and machine-piecing, I’ve found, is how much planning and precision is necessary before starting your stitches.

January 2010: On the machine.

February 2010: Previewing the pattern before final assembly of the quilt top.

March 2010: Finishing the quilt top.

May 2010: Finishing the quilt!

May 2010: On our way to meet Benjamin!

June 2010: I think he likes it.

*Now, here’s where I was lying to everyone: my first attempt machine-quilting was this quilt, instead of The Hex Quilt. My memory was wrong. THIS quilt was the one that taught me how much I hate machine-quilting! Thankfully I had a baby-shaped deadline to force me through.