Quiltingboard Forums - Monkey see, monkey do? Well not quite!

I've read so many posts here where someone just threw a quilt together for a friend, a new baby, a co-worker, someone retiring, whatever, and I wanted to be like you.

I'm relatively new to quilting, don't have a lot of money and can't whip one out in an afternoon, but I decided it was time to try one for a friend of mine who is having her first baby. I have until August, right?
So I found this monkey fabric in flannel and a high school friend of mine shared how she whips them out for her church group so I took her concept and messed with it.

I started out wanting to put the pink between every row of squares and decided it was too heavy on the pink. Then I found out the baby will be a boy. So it stayed only between the middle rows. Actually the quilt is plenty big for a newborn and is lightweight (no batting), so I also thought I could machine quilt it. Forget that!
I did machine quilt everywhere you see a pink box, using pink thread and straight lines, but when I tried to use green to meander with the thin green vines, I discovered I was out of my element and so went with 1/4 inch inside the seams on the beige squares. The backing is solid except where I added a strip of the two monkey fabrics to the top and bottom.

Except for signing it, wrapping it and sending it off, it is done. It only took me a month. (A weekend and then lots of time doing nothing.) I think she will like the crazy color combination and won't mind all the pink for her son and I know she is not expecting it. Here is a photo I just took.

If you made it to the end of my story, thank you for reading the whole thing!