Dashiell's Keekey Quilt

Before Dashiell was born I bought several yards of a blue flannel with a cute monkey print, intending on making him a rag quilt similar to Annaliese's butterfly quilt. I never moved forward on it, though:
1. I couldn't find coordinating flannel in local stores that I liked.
2. My MIL had an Accuquilt Studio die cutter with the rag dies--the thought of sparing myself all the snipping by hand really encouraged me to wait.
3. Ummm... and I had a baby at home!

So a year later when we went to IL for Christmas I took my flannel with me, intending to go fabric shopping there and die cut the squares while at the Trammels.
Upon arriving I was delighted to discover that my MIL had sold her studio machine and purchased two GO! machines, giving me one!! She also had sets of the flannel receiving blankets from Dashiell's crib bedding, which just so happen to match the monkey flannel. I got started right away cutting squares. You may remember because I blogged about it... FIVE months ago... I got everything cut really quickly, and even started quilting and piecing, but got interrupted by gifts and orders... and time passed.
Finally last week I decided for my birthday I wanted to get his quilt done. I worked on it exclusively for two days, and it's complete!! Here it is displayed in Dashiell's room:

I love that it coordinates with his crib bedding. You can see we have lots of monkey items. That little monkey sitting in the corner of his crib is his favorite, he calls him Keekey. When Dashiell first saw the quilt he exclaimed, "Keekey!" Then when I laid it out to take this picture, he said, "WOW!" It was adorable. :)

It's about 45"x58", which will be a great size for his toddler bed when that time comes. This is a close-up of the back. It's easier to see the quilt pattern (four-patches alternating with large blocks) and fabric motifs without all the fraying in the way.

It was not difficult at all to piece the quilt with the blocks pre-fringed. And it was SO WONDERFUL to not have to sit and snip it for hours! The fringe is 3/4" long, so it's pretty raggy. Here's a close-up after just one washing. It will continue to fray and get softer as time goes by:

I'm so glad to have this project completed! Now if I could just return to the Churn Dash baby quilt I started for him... I may have to take a week off this summer from sewing for others and try to crank it out.