making this into a quilt? I was working on a quilt for my bed and I said it was my high school graduation present to myself so I would have a more "grown up" quilt for my bed. My brother then asked if I would make one for him for when he graduates high school. So being the sister I am, I told him yes, and he could pick the pattern as long as it was a one or two spool quilt from old Quiltmaker magazines. Well, he looked and couldn't find anything so asked if he could come up with his own design. I told him he could as long as he stuck to right triangles, squares and rectangle. Well he did, sort of. And he came up with this. The thing is, I have no idea how to cut pieces for it, and I would change it, but I love it the way it is. Anybody have any ideas? Oh, and I have 3 years to finish this, so it's currently on the back burner, but it pops into my head every chance it gets >.<

paper piecing would be my best guess

Nice. I agree, paper piecing would make it soooo easy.

If I were doing it I would make a paper piece pattern. Maybe someone on the board can help you with that. Just a thought:)

Don't look at it as a whole quilt. Look at how it is drawn on the graph paper. Think of each square on the graph paper as 1 inch, 2 inches or whatever you need to to make the whole quilt the size you need it.
Then see how the odd angled stripes work with the pattern if they are easier to make when made from pieces of squares or rectangles.

Hope that helps. PM me if you want.

QuiltingGrannie

Sorry, I have no idea.

that was my first thought, but the picture is the whole quilt. and I don't have a big enough piece of paper to do that. are cutting diagonals hard?

I sent you a PM. :)

What if you starched your fabric well. Sewed the small strip to the big strip and then cut out the triangle from the combination strip. it will be a little off grain but if you starch that will help the possible stretching.

Photo copy and paper piece.

What if you used his design as just a block (maybe a 12 or 15 inch block)? Make the quilt as big as you want and perhaps use a sashing between each block? It would be easier to make a pattern for a block than a whole quilt. It is nice he could make you the drawing. I think it will be a very interesting quilt!

Be sure to keep us up on what your doing with this. It will be quite an interesting project. Good luck to you. I am sure you will make it work!

First clarify with him, if he wants the quilt to look JUST LIKE THAT, because those would be some huge blocks--only 6 for the whole quilt. If instead, he wants this block to be repeated in the quilt, introduce him to graph paper and get him to draw it out again. Then you can size your blocks more easily. I think this would be lovely with batiks or moda marbles and some sashing.

Because he wants the entire quilt to look like that, I told him he could redesign it so it had HST or I could. He didn't want to do it so I came up with something last night on excel and showed him this morning. He said he'd prefer the original, but liked what I did so I'm going to use my design.

As for the big pieces, which are huge, some of them are at least 15 inches, I told him I'd see what I could do, But it might turn into a scrap quilt with each color block being a bunch of scraps of that color. Either that, or he was going to pay for the fabric :D

If you use different fabrics within a color family to make your blocks you could just strip piece it and I don't think it would be very difficult at all. Just keep the colors clear and with a good strong contrast. Will be a fantastic quilt and one he will love for life since his big sis put so much effort into it.

he better love it or I'm taking it back! :D

One of my grandsons was an exchange student when he was 14. I made him a quilt for his dorm bed at his new boarding school. The first thing he said when he got back was that he wanted to make a quilt with me, just to get back into his "real" life. He stayed with me for a week and we made a lap robe for his "other" grandfather who had suffered a stroke. It was wonderful working with him. I'm telling you this because you might really find it fun (and even enlightening) to make the quilt with your brother. You would set the limits and he obviously is capable of making the design. You could show him how the pieces go together (and you could do it together, perhaps). It could be a wonderful adventure and a wonderful memory you will share for the rest of your lives.

I also agree, paper piecing would be the way to go.

It appears that he did use graph paper to draw out this quilt! Nice work! Just for fun, and because I love a challenge, I've drawn it up in my EQ program using his proportions. The block proportion is 18 squares wide, and 24 squares long without borders.

What size quilt does he want? For a queen-size quilt, if you use each square in his graph paper as 1" and enlarge it 400%, you'll have a quilt that measures 72" x 96" before the borders. And to keep the mitered borders in proportion, they'd be 4" for a total size of 80" x 104".

If he wants it for a lap/twin quilt, you'd enlarge the pieces by 300%, adding 3" borders, making the quilt 60" x 78".

I'd say he did a great job with scale, color, balance, creativity! I also tested it out using blocks (4 across, 4 down). I really like the look! The lap/twin size would be 3 x 3. These will be simple to make as a paper-pieced pattern. Let me know in a private message if I can help with that! ~Deonn

I guess my question is what size is the quilt to be? That would determine what size the blocks need to be and if you need to add a design row to either side of the center piece. By doing so the quilt becomes easier to manage and gives you the opportunity to add interest to what might be lost in huge sections of fabric. By adding two same design panels as center panels on either side could add symmetry and size without losing the great design. And yup, paper piece but could be done either way but paper piecing offers the precision. Hope this helps and looks to be a wonderful creative project. Thank you - more pics in future I hope.