WIP–Male Teenagers Quilt!

WIP – So last week I decided that I needed to make my son a quilt, he graduates from high school this year, and I thought it would be nice to make him a quilt.
I have been searching for months for patterns for boys but alas I haven’t really found one! that is until I came across some beautiful quilts  made by Carla  (who blogs at Coras Quilts) for her teenaged sons. 

Photo Source used with permission: Cora Quilts

You need to go and check out her blog, where you will see more photos of the quilts she made for her sons and some other beautiful quilts she has made.
I instantly knew that this would be the perfect pattern.  And funnily enough I had seen the same fabric Carla had used at my LQS the week before and another lady at the store was also making  a quilt for her son with the same fabric.Carla  included a link to a tutorial over at Jeni's blog from In color Order. Her tutorial uses 4 inch squares and is for a quilt measuring 64”x75”
I need to make a queen sized quilt  for my sons bed and it needed to be quick to make if I am to get it done in time for graduation!!!  Talk about leaving it to the last minute!
I decided to draft my own pattern using bigger squares and rectangles. I went to the LQS bought some Curious Nature fabric and started cutting up fabric on Tuesday evening.  By Wednesday evening I had the whole top completely sewn up!  I then decided the next morning to add a couple of borders to it.
So here is photo of the quilt in progress, see my helper, all the time I was trying to cut and lay this quilt out she was there helping me.  I don’t know what it is but she also enjoys the sewing process!!!

All I needed to do was to get some fabric for the backing and then get it quilted.  So on Saturday I went to Target, yep you read that right, I decided to by a queen sized sheet for this quilt, my LAQ is quite happy to quilt sheets which I was surprised at when she suggested it for backing fabric, as I have read somewhere it is a big no no!

I did contemplate quilting this one myself, after all I could just do straight line quilting, but then I though about it and decided that if I really want this quilt to last, remember its going to belong to a teenaged boy and they are not as careful as young ladies, it needs to be quilted  to make it last. 

So I dropped it off with Sue my LAQ on Monday.  If you need a long arm quilter I highly recommend her and she is even happy for you to send your quilt in the mail.

Here is a little sneak peak of what it looked like before borders, The squares are 6” finished and the rectangles are 18” finished. I had no idea how much fabric to buy but went with 7/8 yd of each print that you can see in the photo below.


I am going to go with and edge to edge pantograph design but have no idea what I am going to choose yet, or even what thread colour to go with, so if you have any suggestions then please let me know. I am sure Sue will have some great suggestions anyway, she always does and I trust her judgement.

I hope to get my quilt back in a couple of weeks time, so when I do I will post some photos of the finished quilt.