Drumroll, Please: Son the Younger Has Approved His Quillow Design for 2021!

The experience of making Lars's high school graduation quilt from start to finish in only three months was so stressful that it left me physically ill and completely wiped out.  I have never even made a baby quilt in such a short time frame.  Deadline quilting doesn't suit me, so I'm getting a jump start on Son-the-Younger's high school graduation quilt for 2021 -- in hopes that I can actually enjoy making this one!

Anders' Graduation Quilt for 2021, New York Beauty Blocks by Karen K. Stone

Step one was the solicitation of Son-the-Younger's opinions and preferences regarding the style and design of his quilt.  If you had asked me a week ago, I would have predicted that Anders would want something simpler and less conspicuous than his brother's quilt.  I thought maybe I would be making a T-shirt quilt, because Anders has a fabulous collection of T-shirts with snarky science and violin jokes that he has begun to outgrow.  But no, he does not want a T-shirt quilt.  

I started filling a Pinterest board with a wide range of options for his perusal, with some quilts pinned because of the piecing design and others because I liked the color scheme, and many of them would have been fairly straightforward to put together.  But the quilt that caught his eye was not a "quilt-in-a-day" project -- he picked Cinco de Mayo by Karen K. Stone.  

72 x 72 Cinco de Mayo Quilt by Karen Kay Stone (Book is OOP but available here)

Lars's graduation quilt was an original design, and it was cool to do something completely one-of-a-kind for him.  But I have always wanted to play with New York Beauty blocks and Karen K. Stone designed so many interesting variations on this historical block -- I love her quilt.  What's more, these blocks are available as an add-on-purchase for my EQ8 software, so I was able to start with the blocks and layout Karen designed, add two rows to the layout so the quilt would fit an XL Twin college dorm bed, and then start right in playing with color without having to draft those variations myself.

72 x 96 Cinco de Mayo Resized for XL Twin Bed, in Monochrome

Like Lars's quilt, Anders' quilt will be comprised of 48 twelve inch blocks in a 6 x 8 layout for a finished size (before quilting) of 72" x 96".  Karen's original Cinco de Mayo quilt is 72" x 72" so I just needed to add two more rows.  When I asked Anders what colors he wanted, he said something about blue and white.  After playing around with it for awhile, I decided shades of blue with accents of red/orange would be more fun to work with.  Not sure yet whether I'll stick with solids or venture off into tonal solids, batiks and prints, but what has me most excited about this project is that every block in the quilt is unique and I get to play with scraps, fussy cutting of any interesting prints...  That should help keep things interesting.

Coloring is Just a Guide; This Quilt Will be Scrappy

Quillow Sunday 2021 is twenty-three months away.  

If I make three blocks per month, I'll have all 48 finished in 16 months.  If I make 2 1/2 blocks per month, I'll still be done making them all in 20 months, giving me a month to assemble the blocks into a top and another two months for quilting and binding.  That is SO MUCH MORE my speed!!

Because it's not like I don't have anything else to work on...  Does anyone remember THIS quilt?

Neglected WIP Quilt for Anders That No Longer Fits His Bed

Yes, I'm ashamed to admit that I started making this quilt for Anders back when he was twelve, and here he is about to turn 16 and I have finished ONE block.  Ugh!  It's the Moda Modern Building Blocks sampler, except that I resized it, swapped out a few of the blocks, and added the rainbow stripe borders to the top and bottom to make it fit a twin bed with a really deep pillow top mattress, and then I matched my Kona Solid colors to the modern graphic wallpaper in his en suite bathroom.  And since my son is now TOWERING over me at 5'10" or 5'11" or whatever, we got him a Queen bed.  The irony is that the original quilt pattern was sized to fit a Queen bed and all the blocks would have been ruler-friendly measurements if I'd left it alone...  So anyway, there happen to be 48 blocks in that quilt, of which 47 blocks remain to be constructed.  I need to finish the middle school quilt before my kid graduates from high school, too. Ugh -- so many quilts!!  So little time!!

I'm headed to Appalachian State for New Student & Parents Orientation tomorrow, so consider this my jump start on Design Wall Monday, To-Do Tuesday, AND my July OMG (One Monthly Goal).

This week's To Do:

• Resize Beware the Ishmaelites (Anders' MBB Sampler Quilt) so that it fits a Queen bed again
• Make the two 6" Farmer's Wife blocks that I've selected as "palate cleansers" between projects
• Cut out the turquoise clam shells and circles for the 6-months-overdue Modern Baby Clam Shell quilt (Can you imagine how uncomfortable the poor mother would be if her baby was as long overdue as the baby's quilt?!)

And this month's goals:

• Make the first NY Beauty block for Trece de Agosto (Anders' graduation quilt version of Cinco de Mayo)
• Repair Lars's Drunken Dragons quilt and get that back on his bed in our house
• Make THREE more blocks for Beware the Ishmaelites
• Make another block for Trece de Agosto, Anders' graduation quilt

By the way -- if any one of you owns this Karen K. Stone Quilts book, or your library has a copy, or your friend has one that I could borrow, I would really, REALLY appreciate it.  I can't bring myself to spend over $80 for a paperback book, especially when I already own the patterns from the book, but I would really like to take a look at the instructions to avail myself of any tips, tricks, or special techniques that Karen used in the construction of these very intricate New York Beauty blocks.  Thank you!

I'm linking up with:

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·      Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com

·      Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com 

·      Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts http://www.cookingupquilts.com/

·      Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

·      Moving it Forward at Em’s Scrap Bag: http://emsscrapbag.blogspot.com.au/

·      BOMs Away at Katie Mae Quilts: https://www.katiemaequilts.com/blog/ 

·      Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at http://www.cleverchameleon.com.au

·       To-Do Tuesday at Stitch ALL the Things: http://stitchallthethings.com

·      One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts: http://www.elmstreetquilts.com/

·      Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/

·      WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com