Cacophony: nearing completion

I finally found time after the holidays to get back into my sewing room and work on Cacophony.  The more I work on it the more I'm falling in love with it.  It originally started out as a way to use up scraps in my stash and give as a gift.  As I worked on it many of the fabrics brought back memories of past comforters, quilts, Halloween costumes and other projects.  Some are just fat quarters my daughter and I fell in love with.  

I used spray adhesive to sandwich the layers together and am very pleased with the results.  I did not catch any fabrics on the back as I machine quilted.  I also like that I wasn't constantly navigating and removing pins. 

I originally started out running one long diagonal stitch down the center of the quilt and then realized on the next diagonal that the sashing throws the diagonals off!  Mind you I have a degree in Math Ed, you would think I would have known better to begin with!  I pulled out the seam ripper and pulled the 1+ rows of quilting out.  I really wanted diagonal stitching, so I settled on doing each set of squares individually.  And then about halfway through, past the point of no return, realized that perhaps horizontal or vertical stitching would not have run through the squares that I'd carefully cut to highlight a bird, bunny or  other pattern!  It also would have been much quicker to finish. 

The binding is all that is left and the quilt will be finished.  Below is a close up of the stitching.  I alternated the direction of the stitching by rows giving it a bit of a chevron look.

This quilt started out as a baby quilt that was not gender specific.  It was going pretty well, until I chose the blue for the sashing.  No other color seemed to give pop to the squares except this blue or maybe because blue is my favorite color!

Once finished, my dilemma will be whether or not I can give it as a gift.  Is it made well enough for a gift?  Or am I so invested in it that I can claim it is not and keep it for myself.  How does one let go of their first quilts?  The intended recipient has no knowledge of it ...