The robot monkey quilt is done!

I'm glad to have finally finished my first "real" quilt.  Unfortunately there were many errors, but it ended up pretty nice and helped me get a little better.  At least I'm learning some things NOT to do. :)

For example, machine bind the quilt and let the seam show unless you're going to get it professionally done.  Hand sewing thousands of stitches, taking a week to do, when you're the worst hand sewer on the planet is probably not the way to go.  Still, it made for an interesting groove/texture thing on the back (at least that's what I tell myself).

Soooooo many stitches

I didn't take any photos of the squares before I sewed them into rows, and then the rows together, but here's a picture as I was preparing to sew on the border:

As you can see, there were already many imperfections and poorly matched seams.  I swear I tried to do better!

Finally it was time to add the padding and the back.  Here it is getting pinned down and ready for quilting:

And here's my work station as I was quilting.  Not perfect, but it's all I've got. :)

And here's where I found out that though my machine is nice for embroidery and great for regular sewing tasks, it's not so hot for quilting.  I barely had room to pass a baby quilt through that small arm. A full sized quilt will be a struggle, if not impossible.

Because I had so many problems with lining up the rows, I ended up only doing horizontal stitching in the ditch.  Not exciting nor interesting, but it worked.  I also didn't have a walking foot so I think my options were pretty limited (hey, I'm still learning).  I was also running out of time as my broken machine had set me back a few weeks.

Finally it was time to add the binding.  I ended up cheating here and buying pre-cut and folded blanket binding.  I was lucky to find just the right color.  I followed the binding instructions in the beginning quilting book only to realize those instructions hated me. :) I machine sewed the binding to the front and then hand sewed the back.  Ugh.  It looked strange because I'm so bad at hand sewing and it took ages to do.  But, when it was done, I was finally done.  Yay!

Here it is complete.  I hope my friends like it!