Baby quilt progess

I thought that I was about due for an update on the baby quilt I'm making for my nephew.  I wrote about the top here, and the back here.  This is my first ever quilt and I'm running out of time as my nephew is due on Friday!  I finished his baby blanket last night, but didn't take photos as I was late getting to bed and it was very dark, I'll post about it soon.  The blanket is to be posted down to his parents tomorrow, but I want to take the quilt with me on my first visit which will be shortly after he's born.  Part of me wants him to arrive NOW, the quilting part of me wants him to wait another week or so!

So, where am I with it?  On Saturday I did loads of straight-line quilting on my machine using grey thread.

Actually, it wasn't that straight.  I was following the edges of the sashing with the inner edge of my walking foot, but the sashing is fairly wobbly!  I got there in the end, after about 2 hours I think.  Here it is so far:

As you can see, the back and wadding were loads bigger than the top, I do learn from my mistakes occasionally!  I used Hobbs Heirloom wadding and bought the fusible stuff, thinking it would be easier.  Spot the safety pin basting?  Yep, it wasn't easier.  First of all I didn't realise it was fusible on both sides (duh, why wouldn't it be?!) and fused it to my ironing board, secondly, it's not that fusible.  It fuses, but it peels off.

Here's the quilting on the back, I quite like it, wonkiness and all! 

So, all that remains to do now is to hand quilt the squares.  I've got some perle cotton in various shades hoping that some will match.  I went back and forth over whether to cotton should match the square I'm quilting, or contrast.  I'm going with matching, about 1/2 inch from the edge, I think!  Oh, and I'm going to have to deal with the little issues shown in the photo below.  There are two of them... and no, I'm not unpicking the quilting, I'll snip them out somehow!!

After that, I'd better get the binding on pretty quick! I'm at work all week and have things to do most evenings, so if my nephew will just stay put for another week, that gives me the weekend to get it done. Oh, I told Mr CA I'm painting the bathroom this weekend... perhaps not!