The best laid plans...

I have been working on quilts for my nephews and had hoped to have them done by Christmas -but there was not way to get it all completed. By Thanksgiving I knew it was a no - go so gave them other presents and showed them the partially finished quilts. Being delightful kids they were pleased with their alternate gifts and enjoyed the thoughts of the quilts. I have one top finished and have been working on the second top.

The second top has caused me great grief and trouble. I tried a pattern that called for making uneven strips of fabric, sewing them all together and then cutting large quilting squares and making the quilt that way. After just a few minutes I knew this was going to be a disaster and would take forever. Essentially you have to make the strips of fabric before you can even start cutting the quilt. I knew the kid would be in college before I could finish this. Here's an example:

So I punted. I made the squares, but much less than called for and I bought precut blue jean fabric off ebay. Then I used the made fabric as accents only. While I was working on it I realized that it was kinda dull so I took the made red fabric and cut circles and appliqued them all over the top. That brightened it up a bit. I may add more, not sure yet.

I 've decided to tack this quilt, and was getting ready to do it tonight BUT found that the batting that I have is only twin size. When I started these quilts both boys had twin beds. One now has a double size, so I had to make a larger quilt for one and figured that I'd better make a larger size for both kids. But I forgot about the batting. And now its' Sunday night and I can't use yucky Wal mart poly fil after getting used to Dream Wool, so I went on line to order dream wool. Hopefully it will come while I am in California so that I can really finish it next week. I'm a bit worried about the binding on this quilt. I got some red flannel and would prefer to do it myself but I'll have to see. The green quilt that I made for Brian I am going to have professionally quilted and finished off. Since I made that so long ago, I feel I didn't put as much creativity into the whole quilt, so I'd like to to have really nice quilting. Plus a blue jeans quilt calls out for a tacked finsh, don't you think?

And here's a sample of the unfinished, unironed quilt. I chose not to set out the jeans material in advance, I wanted a random approach. I think I got random, but sometimes random patternes.

I hope I have it finished before winter comes.

A good friend just told me that she is going to be a first time grandma. I'm starting her gender neutral quilt already!