It's Plaid - the graduation quilt

This handsome devil graduated high school in May. Cocky little brat. He's my youngest and most challenging child. He thinks differently than his older brother and sister. I had to change my parenting techniques several times while he was growing up. He has always loved to debate so I wasn't surprised that he took debate classes throughout his high school years. He challenged everything even if he didn't care about the topic. He won many discussions with me because he is such a good debater. It's hard to say no when the other person has all the right answers to make it a yes.

This is a picture of Mandy and Robbie. When Mandy graduated in 2009 he wore her robes so they did a remake of that pic. Robbie is 6'4" so poor Mandy is drowning in his robes.

Robbie has been wearing plaid shirts and shorts since middle school. I took several of his outgrown shirts and cut them apart to make a graduation quilt for him.

   

I used Forest Bricks from Mary Quilts. I've made this pattern a few times and I always like the finished quilt.

I even had a little helper.

Miss Mocha loves to bury herself in clean clothes. Anytime she sees a pile of clothes (or fabric) she dives right in.

This last picture is when I was playing with the layout. Everything was going fine until I realize not all the blocks were going in the same direction. When I was sewing the tiles into blocks of four I didn't think it would matter how they were stitched together. I thought since it's square that if one way didn't work then I could just spin it and it would work from that direction. Nope. I figured that wrong so I had to unsew about a third of the blocks.

New Pillows for the Kiddos

My two oldest kiddos, okay adults, moved out earlier this year. I decided their couches needed some pillows. I made the forms from an old pillow a couple months ago but never got any farther. I decided since they were having a Memorial Day cookout I should hustle up and get the pillow covers made. I dug into my red, white, and blue scrap bin and came out with these:

One of their couches is a dark blue so I think these work really well for that couch. The other couch looks like something from That 70's Show lol. It's brown, orange, and gold or something similar. It's a sleeper sofa and only cost $5 from the thrift store so for now it works just fine.

I thought a log cabin pillow cover might be fun. I was going for a bit wonky but I don't think I wonked it up enough. It just came out like a rectangle but on a square pillow form. It's okay, it still works as a pillow and brightens up the living room so all is good.

I do like this patchwork version. These two projects didn't even make a dent in my red, white, and blue fabric scraps.

The backs are just a solid blue that I found in my stash. They are simple envelope style covers. I think it will be fun to make different covers for the holidays or to represent what my kids love. Since the next holiday is the 4th of July these covers will still work so I'm ahead of the game ;)

YouTube update

I recently purchased some room darkening/heat blocking curtains. It was less expensive to purchase the longer curtain panel and cut it down to fit two of my windows. Come hang out with me while I shorten and hem my new curtains.

Also, my latest podcast episode is available. I've been working on a few different projects these past two weeks. It's Spring allergy season here in SW Florida and my eyes do not look happy.

April 1st podcast available

It's the beginning of the month so it's time for a new podcast:

My machine has been in the shop for a cleaning and an oil change for the past two weeks so not much sewing to show this time. The weather has been changing so it's been a migraine kinda day so you'll have to excuse my less than enthusiastic nature this week.