Thanks again, everyone, for the welcome! I just wanted to update this thread with a big "I finished!" (well, kind of...)
I just finished the binding on the baby quilt. It all "only" took 105.5 hours, lol. I learned a lot with it though, and really enjoyed the whole process. I've had a second baby quilt started for a while (also a panel), and making good progress on that.
Two other machine-quilted quilts happened in the meantime as well (a Grinch quilt for myself, and a black and batik-blue quilt for my son, as well as a Weird Al concert quilt--really thick batting to make it softer to sit on the ground at outdoor concerts.)
As for why it's kind of finished... I used Warm and Natural for the batting, and need to go back and add a little more quilting to the areas that have over 8" between stitches. So, as I have short amounts of time, I'll add little flowers, rocks, dandelion fluffs, something, to make sure I have my distances all good.
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The panel was found at Salvation Army, and the ends and backing were in the remnant bin at JAF. The binding I had to buy from the bolts, but there was a great sale + coupon. Now it just needs a special little kid to love it.