Quilt for a (young) man ...

I don't think I've yet to make a quilt I didn't like but I've definitely made a few that I love (off the top of my head: Amsterdam / PBF's Wedding / Piano / Snooker Table) and this is in that category. Why? Because it was a gift for our nephew (who was 24 on Thursday) whom we dearly love, the design and execution challenged me and it is so very different to anything I've made before. What I didn't love was sewing all the black fabric ... harder on the eyes than I was expecting!

My inspiration for this quilt was the John Butler Trio t-shirt Alex wore during our ski holiday this year:

Don't quilters get their inspiration from the strangest of places?? I trusted online retailers' photos of fabric colours and was really pleased to see how closely they matched:

I drew the chevrons out and decided on measurements and got cutting quite quickly:

I went with flying geese rather than half square triangles (HSTs) and although the squares were only 2 and 3/4" I still drew lines for accuracy:

Once I'd made the chevrons and added some black framing blocks, I realised it wasn't going to work with just one so I made another ... as you do:

Now I was left with lots of spare HSTs saved from the flying geese corners so thought of a way to incorporate them and use them up. Here's how I went about making the 'Star Wars X-fighters' eyes' ... well that's what DH calls them:

There were too many seams / lines for me to even attempt straight-line quilting so I stuck with what I know - stippling - and chose a dark blue thread as I thought black would be too dull! It worked out really well and I didn't mind it standing out on the chevrons because the t-shirt design had ink stains / paint splashes on it:

I had found the perfect backing fabric - Alex plays guitar - and DH had a bit of fun with the quilt name:

And the finished quilt which, thankfully, Alex loves (as do I!):

Linking up with Amanda Jean @ Crazy Mom Quilts and Sarah @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Have a great weekend :)