David's Graduation Quilt

During spring break this last week, I drove to Corvallis to spend a little time with my son, David and my favorite daughter-in-law, Jess.  They knew I wanted to take pictures of their quilts and had them all neatly folded and ready to go.  We'll start with the one on top this week.  David's graduation quilt.  

David graduated from Oregon State University in December of 2009 with a Bachelor's degree in Radiation Health Physics.  He is now working on his Master's degree.  Just saying it makes me feel smarter.

I saw this pattern in the"American Patchwork & Quilting" magazine October 2006 issue and it really made an impression on me.   When I saw these "woolies" flannels at "The Pine Needle" (a favorite local store) a year later, I remembered the pattern and went searching for it again.  I purchased most of the fabric there, but did find a few at other shops.  It's fun to collect for a quilt like this and have an excuse to visit all the shops around.

The center of each block is exactly the same - a red tweed flannel circle appliqued onto a black houndstooth flannel square.  It's just the kind of applique project I like because you can do all the preparation and then take it on the road.  I worked on the 90 circles for many months as I went on trips here and there.  Eventually they were all finished and I was able to move on to the piecing.  The quilt has a total of 90 8" square-in-a-square blocks and the finished size is 72" x 80".

 I did the quilting myself.  You can't really see it because it is all quilted "in the ditch".  On most of my quilts I press the seam allowances in one direction instead of open.  This creates an uneveness along the seamlines.  One side of the seam has three layers of fabric (the top and 2 seam allowances) while the other side has only one layer of fabric.  I stitch on the side of the seam with the single layer, and it makes my stitching almost disappear and the other side pop up even more.  I quilted straight lines vertically and horizontally around the sides of every block and also diagonally in both directions taking me around the larger square inside the main block.  I did not quilt around the black square but went around every circle, still in the ditch but using free motion quilting (I'll explain that another time) instead of my walking foot.

And here is the handsome graduate after receiving his quilt.  He was quite pleased and I know his quilt is loved and used.