My first patchwork blanket

My sister is heavily pregnant and went into early labour the day before new year's eve, so I've been on tenter hooks and panicking wildly as wanted to make the new baby a patchwork blanket.  Thankfully, it's slow labour that she's gone into apparently and it seems to have gone quiet for the minute, which is really good as until today the baby would be classed as premature and my sister and the baby would have to stay in hospital for at least 72 hours.  Not fun.  Added to that is the fact that on her first baby she had pre-eclampsia and was forced to have an emergency caesarian, so I'm keeping everything crossed that it all turns out ok.  Anyway...I wanted to get the blanket done in time for the new arrival so it's a bit rustic...and it is my first attempt so do be kind!

The fat quarter's I used were bought from Ray Stitch, I substituted two Amy Butler fat quarter's for two more child related patterned ones I had of mice and chickens.  I suddenly realised at 11pm New Years Day that as I rounded the third corner with the white binding that I didn't have any more, so I had to improvise and use yellow on the fourth side.  I know it doesn't match and ordinarily I would have gone out and bought enough to finish it all in the same colour but what with the time constrictions I thought it was better if I just finished it.  I'm thinking that it might be my 'design quirk' for any patchwork blankets I make in the future will have one side of binding in a different colour! 

And now for a close up:

The back isn't perfect, and I cheated there too.  I didn't go for batting and cotton backing but instead got a plain white thin fleecy blanket and used that as the back.  It's soft and warm and cuddly snuggly.  I really like the patterns on the fat quarters, especially the little mushrooms!  I tried to keep the pattern as simple as possible and straight lines only, well they were straight until I started cutting and sewing! haha! 

In the words of narcoleptic in a cupboard there were a few 'puck ups' in the fleecy blanket as shown here:

It looks a bit worse here as I had no little helper to hold it for me and had to improvise with the bannister and some pegs.  Overall I'm really happy with the result and I've got patchwork left over as didn't want to make it too big so thinking of making some sort of bag to keep a few nappies, wipes and a change of clothes in for the baby.  At least it's one thing ticked off my new year sewing list already!  Yay!  I would have posted about this earlier but had some technical difficulties with the laptop, mainly that the 'enter' key wasn't working so needed a new keyboard...anyway difficulty over so lots of things to tell you all about in the next post!