Plus Quilt

It's been a long time coming, but this quilt is finished and gifted!

The members of the Garza family are the first friends I made in dental school.  More precisely, Rudy is the first person I met in my dental school class.  I was set to have a lunch date with his sister, Elizabeth (quilt seen here), and we were meeting at her house.  Little did I know that their mom was *making* lunch and I would have the privilege of meeting all of their family + Stephen, another dental student.

Let's get this straight here: 2 brothers, 1 sister, all in dental school.  Add in Stephen who was living with the family at the time.  That's a lot of dental school insanity going on in one household!

Needless to say, Rudy and his family played a huge role in my life these past four years as great friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and in Rudy's case, class president : )

I figured he deserved a quilt.  He also asked for one.  Most everyone else in our little "group" received one upon their wedding and Rudy here is still living up the bachelor-hood.  He complained that he'd never get a quilt, so I said I'd make him one when he was accepted into the Oral Surgery residency he was applying for. He matched with Houston and starts medical school in July, so here's the quilt!

I didn't think to measure, but based on Rudy's approximate height, I'd say it's at least 60" x 72"?

I made it out of scrubs : )  I had several pairs that took quite a beating in dental school, so instead of throwing them out, I cut around the stains and holes and made something useful.  I started to exclude the pockets and seams, but decided they gave it character and left them in.  I think that's pretty fun.  The border and backing is from a sheet I had in my stash.

After piecing the top, Erik still insisted it was "boring".  I think he's just used to printed fabric.  But I took his comment and decided that this might be a good time to try my hand at hand quilting with pearl cotton and some crochet cotton.  I chose contrasting thread for each cross, either a shade of blue or white or off-white.  I think it gave it a lot of character and I'm glad I took the time to do it.  I outlined each cross and quilted the border with 4 different lines all the way around.

I'm all graduated and licensed and working on insurance and registration with drug agencies so I can start practicing!  I'll be substituting for a dentist for some random dates in June and July and maybe even August, so that will keep me going with my hand skills, but allow me to take it slow while I grow ever-larger.  I'm seven months tomorrow and everything appears straight-forward with this pregnancy so far!  This God-send of a job will also give me more time for some neglected quilting projects ; )