Making a quilt for your DD is a lovely idea! I am doing one for my DD, and I love the fact that as I sew, I am thinking of her and putting all sorts of lovely thoughts and vibes into it!!

I am doing it by hand also, as I am using the English Paper piecing method. I chose this style as I remember my Grandmother doing it and I vividly remember admiring quilts she made with all those tiny handstitches. It is absolutely doable in my opinion, if you are prepared to take a long time !

I just bought a whole heap of fabric I liked then set to work. I scoured the internet searching for inspiration and settled on a rough design. A patchworker told me that generally, if you choose fabrics you like, it should all come together, especially with a "scrappy" quilt as I am doing - and she is right, I am 1/4 through and it is divine! So far it has taken me 9 months, but I would take 6 months off that as I stopped when I got pg as I went to bed early every night rather than sewing, then had other stuff on with a house move etc. Basically I just do a bit in front of the TV nightly and I can take it with me and do it on the go if I want too.

In the meantime, (with all the internet inspiration) I decided I would have a go at machine quilting too and whipped up a few dolls quilts, then a single bed quilt for DD (for the interum until I finish this one ) then a cot quilt for a friend. They are so much faster to make, but, this hand done one will be so much more special!!

Keep in mind, once you have hand done the quilt top, you can always pay for someone else to do the quilting by machine. They are often professionaly finished. I am still tossing up whether to hand quilt mine

The suggestions above of a simple square cut patchwork or one using pre-cut charm packs are good ones (I whipped up the cot quilt in a day with one of these and the colours are beautiful together) but if you are interested in my method, search 'english paper piecing' in You tube or google images. There are great tutorials available on the web and on you tube to get an idea. For quilting in general, I learned all I needed to get me going via you tube - the "expert village" - "how to quilt" & "how to make quilts" series were excellent.