Year 40 Quilt

My birthday is this week, and it'll put me just a year shy of 40. I don't get anxious about birthdays, and I'm neither dreading nor excitedly anticipating the milestone next fall, but it will be the start of a new decade and I've been thinking that I want to mark it somehow. To make something fresh and tangible to kick off a time span that I hope will be more intentional and fulfilling, and less out-of-control-career-and-kid-driven-roller-coaster ; ) 

I loved watching Adrienne of On the Windy Side create her block-a-day Year 30 Quilt, but I know I can't commit to that amount of work alongside everything else I have going on. And I thought the Milestone Quilt that Kitty of Nightquilter made for her son's first year was brilliant because she completed it slowly, just one block each month (as opposed to the zero quilts of his own that my now 2 1/2 year old has because thinking of it in terms of "big project" makes it easier to say it can't be fit in just yet... don't worry, though - he's getting one before I do!). So I'm planning to combine both ideas and create my own Year 40 Quilt, working on a block a month until my birthday next November.

I flipped through my old sketchbook for a design I'd doodled a few years back with the intent of creating a purple quilt, fiddled with it a bit, and settled on a final layout. I'm going to use the purples I mentioned in my last post, plus a solid background that I'm waiting to have arrive. I still need to add some more prints, though - I think I'm up to about 27, but I figured why not go full on with the theme and make it 40! So the quilt will have 12 blocks comprised of 40 total fabrics. I'll share my progress with you as I go!

Anyone else made a milestone year quilt before? I'd love to see!
Leave a link in the comments!

​~ Sarah