Granddaughter's graduation quilt - part 2

This is a continuation of a previous post about the making of a high school graduation quilt for our 4th grandchild.  

Once I decided on the layout, the rest of the making of this quilt went pretty fast.  It was just a matter of sewing the blocks into rows and sewing the rows together.  

Here is the completed top.  It's 62" W x 73" H.  I'm going to have my favorite long-arm quilter finish this one for me.

I hope you like it; and I hope she is going to like it too!

Granddaughter's Graduation Quilt

I never think it is too early to start working on a quilt that is going to be a present.  Our 4th grandchild is a junior in high school this year, and when she graduates, I'll be presenting her with her graduation quilt.  I've asked her to look at a few quilt designs and tell me about her favorite colors, but so far, not many ideas are forthcoming.  I know that she likes pale sage green.  Other than that, I think I'm free to make any kid of design I'd like.

There were a few remnants of sage green fabric in my stash and a few others that played well with that color.  I also pulled out a pile of off-white to add to the mix.  Later, I pulled out the bright turquoise fabric because it was a bit too shocking.  Well, it wouldn't be shocking in most quilts that I would make, but I know that she likes the more pale look.

I decided to do a quilt using half square rectangles.  I made one a few years ago and liked using the Block-Loc rulers.  It was time for them to come out and play again.  I cut 4" x 8" rectangles out of the colors and stacked them up to cut the diagonal line.  All of the greens were paired with the off-white pieces and sewn together.  I knew that I needed to make 240 for the size of quilt I wanted to make.  Here are a bunch of them tossed up on the wall.

And, here are the rest of the blocks on the wall.  There were reorganized to make a few diamond shapes.  I could have played with them for a long time and come up with a ton of other layouts.  But, I do have to sleep at night and these kinds of things keep my brain running at full speed.  So, this was the layout that was going to be sewn together.

I hope you like it so far!

Graduation quilt presentation

Our 3rd grandchild graduated from high school on June 7th.   It was actually a fun graduation ceremony, complete in about 2 hours with over 500 seniors!  It was a fine summer evening and so special to be there.  

Her party was held a week later and that is when she was presented with her high school graduation quilt.  Oh, to be that age again with all your hopes and dreams ahead of you.

I hope you get to celebrate milestones with your family too.

Granddaughter's Graduation quilt - post #3 - FINAL

This is a continuation of two other posts about the making of the graduation quilt for my granddaughter.  I had coffee with her parents after watching her in a Veteran's Day parade with her high school marching band.

They asked me if I'd seen her bedroom decorations recently, and I answered that I hadn't.  They said it is almost pure white, with very little color.  That really helped me "pale out" the quilt.  I think the quilt will now be more to her liking, while still letting me put in a few flecks of color.  

I sewed it together on the diagonal set.  And here it is already quilted.  Side Note:  I woke up at 3:00 am and thought it might be fun to applique some white flowers on the top.  Then woke up later:  NO.

Tami Levin did the quilting for me with a digital design that has swirls and circles.  It is so modern and beautiful all quilted. 

I love Tami's work.   I hope you like it too!

Graduation Quilt for granddaughter

One of my granddaughters is a junior in high school and is taking classes at the community college.  That means that its time to start thinking about and working on her high school graduation quilt.  I asked her mother what colors she likes now, and she said "Sage and beige".  Oh.  She used to like rainbow colors, nice and bright.  I'm not that keen on pastel quilts, but I decided I must slog through it.  

I picked out all the sage and beige fabrics in my stash, and surprisingly, I had some of both!  I definitely needed to go shopping for more beige, and maybe something more solid.  So off to the quilt stores I headed!   Here's the pile.

The pattern.  I auditioned several patterns that I thought were younger and more fun.  Most of them, though, depended on distinct value differences.  Sage and beige are too close to get that effect.  So, I decided to do an improv square in a square quilt.  Here is my sketch:

I made the large square in a square blocks and the long ones. 

Then I started doing improv to fill in the blanks.  I love doing improv piecing  For this quilt, most of the squares will end up 8".  Within that parameter, though, there is a lot of leeway as to how the blocks are constructed.  Some of them are colorways of 5 fabrics separated by a solid color.  Some have small squares within the square to alter the sizes.  And some are square within squares with the center piece different sizes and borders of different widths.  So much fun!  Showing some progress with these different blocks.

Well, I hated it.  It was just a jumble of crap.  It didn't look "young", or cohesive, or interesting.  Perhaps it was the winter blahs setting in or perhaps it was the colors that didn't appeal to me.  I pulled all the blocks off the wall and reorganized them.  Still, it was yucky.  

Stay tuned to see what I did.