A Quilt for Thomas

Wanting a quilt is contagious. Way back in January, I made a quilt for my youngest son, Adam. When his older brother, Thomas, saw what was going on, he wanted a quilt of his own, too. We had a design session together where we went through all the quilts I had pinned on Pinterest. He said yes/no/maybe to each one until he decided on the one he wanted. This is what he selected:

This picture linked back to an article with the title "53 Quilts To Eye, Create, Or Buy". I could not find the original source for this quilt so I considered myself on my own. I took pencil and graph paper and did my best to recreate it. I ended up making six large block designs and repeated each of them three times.

Thomas was very pleased with the first two blocks so I kept going.

After I had finished completing the piecing of the top, I found another image on Pinterest of this quilt:

This image linked to a site with the pattern. I highly recommend purchasing this pattern if you want to make this quilt. I certainly would have if I had known of its existence.

I was very excited about where this was going and was eager to finish. Then, on March 6, I fell while roller skating and broke my left ankle. I will never take having two working legs and feet for granted again. Who knew how much I needed my left foot to be happy and successful in my sewing room. For thirteen weeks, I could not put any weight on that foot. As for sewing, I could handle small piecing, but layering and machine quilting was not going to happen in any big way. On June 5, I got the good news that I could start using my foot again. This past weekend was the first weekend with a working foot and substantial sewing and quilting time. This quilt was at the top of the list.

Originally, I was determined to quilt this in free motion swirls, circles or some other random design, but my machine decided something different. No matter how much I tried, I could not keep my top thread from breaking. So, eventually, I decided to do an asymmetrical cross hatch pattern.

These pictures are after the quilt has been washed. It is all soft and crinkly and has already been well loved by its owner.

The back is a giant sized version of the front.

Normally, I tend to go with a darker binding, but this ended up being a case of making do with what is on hand. This orange-yellow is the only fabric that worked that I had a big enough piece to use for binding. This project has been a good one for pushing me in a different direction than I intended. I love the way the light binding makes the orange and yellow blocks pop a little more.

I am really, really excited to be back in the swing with finishing some quilts.