Up Next -- the Legend of Zelda Quilt

This quilt is a special order for my middle son, The Artist.  He described to me exactly what he wants, came along on fabric shopping day and chose his fabrics, and is having a ball watching the stack of triangles turn into his quilt.

I love that he has the confidence to design things himself, and the confidence in me that is his unwavering faith that I can of course pull off his design, no problem. And I so enjoy bonding with him over the design & construction process; so fun to have a special thing that only he & I share; the rest of the family enjoys the fruits of my labor and will cheer and nod and ooooh & aaah when prompted, but my middle boy, he truly gets it. Such a joy to share that with him!

His request for this quilt (it will be bed sized when finished) was simple enough --- the "Tri-Force" symbol from the Legend of Zelda video games, in a field of green. We will also be appliqueing a particular sword but that part is not drawn out yet; I'm going to have him help with that part when we get there.

Legend of Zelda Quilt Design (original design)
front of quilt

He also requested cat fabric. The  original plan called for a border on the front made of cat fabrics, but then we learned we'll be moving later this year and he will likely upgrade to a full sized bed rather than twin, so the pattern had to be adjusted. Of course I'd already bought the fabric based on calculations for a twin sized quilt, and had spent way too much --- he picked out the fabric, which was imported, which means it was quadruple the price, which, well, adds up to way too much. So there just was not fabric money left in the budget, and so the carefully chosen, heavy flannel for the back had to grow....how to make that happen without spending more money?

Thank goodness for EQ7 design software! I was able to play with several different ideas, check the fabric requirements each time, try again, keep playing....yes! A design that results in a full sized quilt, not twin, yet without changing the yardage requirements for the fabrics I purchased (I will instead supplement with fabrics from my stash).  The end result was that a black border was added to the front, using leftover fabric from the Comic Strip Quilt just completed, as well as a border made up of gems from the game called Rupees. These come in a rainbow of colors, so scraps will be perfect! Yay!

Then the cat fabric border got moved to the back and will frame a pieced cat block (oversized), which will set into the flannel backing and thus "grow" that fabric so that I don't have to buy more flannel or have competing cats & video games all on one side. Whew!

blocks, stacked  & pinned in row order according to the drawing, waiting to be sewn
blocks are oversized (finish at 12" squares) to speed construction

I started cutting triangles on Monday, and today I have all the blocks made for the center of the front, and will get them into rows and hopefully all together as a top. Next week, cutting those rupee blocks and making those side borders....with any luck, this will come together quickly and he'll have it ready for his bed before it gets too cold here -- southern hemisphere, so we're in autumn and heading into winter, or what passes for winter down here.

Follow along; it should be a fun quilt to work on!