I bought the fabrics for the quilt for Noah at Keepsake Quilting in New Hampshire on my way back from the trip to Toronto late August. Six fabrics in shades of green/teal that worked with the photos I’d taken of the paint in his bedroom.

Next, I looked through my Pinterest collection of quilts but nothing stood out. In fact it seemed that given this was to be for a boy’s bed it ought to be simple without a lot of piecing. So I decided to base the quilt on the lap quilt I’d made for myself:

Noah’s is a double bed – I’d bought the fabrics planning to work with the width so I didn’t have enough length in each fabric to make strips the full width of the large quilt without some piecing.

So I inserted strips mid way, and at each end to expand the centre area. I wanted the middle to be almost the width of the bed, so the two dark lengthwise strips would frame the edge of the bed. Then I added more wide strips matching the fabrics from the middle, finishing off with narrow strips around the entire edge. The finished top measures 86″ x 86″.

Now to set up the back – I have enough fabric for two pieces of fabric which will give me 86″ in width but in order to quilt the quilt, I need between 92″-94″ in both width and length in the back to mount it on the long arm quilter, so I’ve set up a 5 1/4″ wide strip pieced from 2 1/2″ pieces (made of leftovers from the edge of the front)- those I will insert to one side of the centre of the back – joining the centre back seam using a 1 1/2″ strip of dark green on on either side of the pieced strip. 

I plan to finish the ensemble with two pillow shams, the fronts of which will also be pieced. I’ll do those after I take the quilt to be quilted – I have no room to do this myself – I don’t have floor space to lay out the back and build the quilt sandwich, and even if I did, I don’t have a work space large enough to either free-motion or embroider the quilt! So this time I will have it done for me.

If I’d been planning better, I might have set up the quilt with blocks – then I’d have been able to quilt-as-I-go; but that wasn’t the case here. Perhaps on another quilt.