The Story of my Brother’s Quilt

The quilt I made for my brother has gone through many transformation over the years.  Yes. Years.

When I started making this ‘Squarey Quilt’ 8 years ago, my initial intention was to give it to my brother.  As I worked on it…I discovered that I was too in love with it to part with it.  It’s still on my bed today.  Ooops.

So…it turns out he did really want a quilt.  And I wanted to make him a quilt.  We just have very different taste so it was hard for me to get into.  Finally, in May of 2012 I pulled some fabrics.

He requested white with cool colors.  I’m sure many of you are already scratching your head if you are familiar with the quilts I typically create.

My first thought was to do all different blocks and create a really modern looking sampler…

So I made…

this block…a modified version of the block I designed “Presents Under the Tree” this block…a twist on the granny square block going around…

this block…a modernized log cabin I created…

And this block, the dancing star.

I was really liking how these blocks were all looking but something just wasn’t quite right.  It was taking me forever between each block and I didn’t have an ‘end’ in sight…

Then we went to visit my brother.  His apartment was very white…and black. There were no cool colors in it…just black and white.  I decided to change directions completely.

I started working on my new plan for Brian’s quilt in July.  I completely changed my fabric choices and pattern design.  Using my own pattern with the aid of EQ7 I came up with this modern, geometric, white quilt for my brother.  I had the top pieced by the end of July.  It turns out…as always…I just needed to ‘feel’ the quilt so I could actually finish it.  It ended up being black and white with just pops of cool blues and greens. 

By the end of August, it was back from Quilts by Barb, all quilted.  She did a swirly all over patterns with random ‘snowflake’ like designs here and there.  My brother is a big snowboarder and I think this awesome touch of ‘flakes’ was the perfect touch!I added a variegated black and white binding to it and put the stitches in the binding.  This past Monday I showed it at the ‘Show N Tell’ portion of my quilt guild.  Next week, it will be going home to my mom’s to be kept safe and sound until Christmas…away from six sticky little girl hands!  Everyone I’ve showed it too thinks Brian will love it…I really hope he does!

 

So…after all that…I’m pretty sure I have the perfect quilt for my brother made.  I just hope he thinks so too!  We’ll find out in December!