Thoughts on Avery's quilt

As I mentioned before the quilt I'm working on right now was inspired by a quilt I thrifted (for $3) a while back. I love the tiny little squares and how each big square tells a story. As you look at the quilt you discover new bits and pieces of colors and prints you didn't notice before. I love that. I also had many different fabric scraps that I absolutely loved and wanted to 'preserve' in a special quilt that would stay with us (instead of being gifted away). I also have been meaning to make a quilt for my sweet Avery for a while now. Goodness she is sweet and I could just eat her up she is so lovely. So she is also my inspiration for this quilt, her little giggles (which always surprise me because she is mostly very quiet), her brand new two front teeth, her teeny tiny little toes, and her big brown eyes (I feel nothing but gratitude when I look at her).

Just like the thrifted quilt, each block has 25 mini blocks that measure 2 inches by 2 inches (once they are sewn up they only measure about 1.5 inches). They are mostly pieced at random save for each block has two pieces of the red and white polka dot and two solid pink pieces (the theme in this quilt being mostly red and pink which are my two favorite colors... which is why most of my fabric scraps happen to be this color). The other thing I focused on when sewing my blocks is that I wanted a contrast between the 'light' and 'dark' fabrics. So I pieced the small blocks alternating between the two. I also added in some fabric that I 'fussy cut' so that specific images would be showcased like the owls, the bunnies and the flowers etc.

When I started the quilt I knew that I would piece it all together using white (I read somewhere -probably on a blog, that you should use a lot of white in your quilts because it makes your colors 'pop'). I haven't used any white in my quilts to date and I think this one is the right one. Now here is where I'm hesitating. All along I thought I would bind the quilt using the red and white polka dots. I just love that fabric and I'm inspired by Nettie and how she seems to mostly use stripes etc on her bindings and I love the look. Last night I took a few planning shots and now I'm not really sure about the binding. I'm sorta leaning more towards just a plain pink instead. I find the red brings out too much of the orange and red, when what I really want to emphasize is the pink and red (Avery's room is mostly pink, predictable but true). I also thought I would 'frame' each of the blocks with pink but I'm also not sure about that either. Maybe I should just leave the blocks as they are (I love those blocks!).

And here's why I'm being extra careful about these decisions, each of those blocks took 35-40 minutes to make (that's 800 minutes. 13.5 hours -and that's not including the time it took to cut the fabric)....  I want this baby to be 'just right'. I want to LOVE this quilt when I'm done with it.

What do you think?  Do I frame each block in pink or leave them as they are? Do I bind in red polka dots or just plain pink? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think (even if you don't sew I want to hear your thoughts). You can click on the pictures to get a better view, sorry about the bad lighting.

(it's between polka dot on the bottom left corner and the pink on the right, ignore the other fabrics)

To frame or not to frame?

I've got some time to mull this over... I've got four more of those blocks still to go.