Seeing Squares - C's quilt

In August my 5 year old nephew informed me (very sadly) that he did not have a quilt on his bed like his sister. I tried to palm it off to Grandma, who made his sister's, and got the response "but she's on a mission". What my adorable nephew didn't know is that I had already been looking on-line for a pattern and had found one that I liked and thought would work. Seeing Squares by Empty Bobbin. C's favorite color is orange, I thought that the quilt looked 'boyish', and I thought the pattern would 'grow with him'. Win!

Fabric was ordered in May - Kona Cotton in lagoon, bahama blue, cyan, caribbean, orange, papaya, cactus, chartreuse, lime, and ash. (Just like the picture except for the ash substituted for white.)



I finally started working on it in November. The cutting, sewing, iron, trimming cycle just about drove me nuts ... but I love the results.

Here's the first layout I did (the top row of squares are for the back).

I changed a few things and added one more 6.5" column after this picture was taken.

It was finished in time to take home at Christmas to get Mom and my sister to help with the hand quilting. There was some debate as to what to quilt - but after doing a couple of squares, we realized we needed to quilt around every single square.

The quilt was put on Saturday afternoon and that night, one long side was rolled. It was moved out of the way for Christmas and brought back Monday morning. Tuesday afternoon it was done. (2 1/2 days!) There were lots of sore fingers (thank goodness for liquid band-aid!).

Binding was sewed on the back and hand sewed to the front. We were all tired of being stabbed by pins when Dad remembered a 'cup of clamps' he bought. 5/8" in size and _perfect_ for holding on binding while being hand sewed. (They really should market these to quilters!)

front

back

Quilting through the squares on the pieced back was miserable - but it looks wonderful ... and I might even do it again.

Finished size: 66" x 90", quilted with grey thread.

And for those who need to know how many squares it contains (like my nephew) - 1080.