Quinceanos Quilt Progress

The 15th birthday Is a big deal for girls in the Hispanic culture. Since we are sewers/quilters my MIL and I have made signature quilts to mark this milestone in the lives of my nieces and daughters.  This was the first one done long distance and it has been a challenge.

This quilt has been covering the design wall since November or December with no progress at all. It is an original design trying to incorporate all the areas of Middle E's life. I had to send the signature blocks to Guatemala in March long before I had a plan. So I just sent 4" blocks and figured that was pretty generic and I would work out something.

Current progress - not shown are top 3 finished rows.

In September I figured I better get on it since her 15th birthday was in November.   What I imagined was just turquoise and lime green. But then it evolved into different colors for each group. The high school swim team was easy - black, silver, blue and Carolina blue in the lower right corner diagonally.   Then the Guatemala family and friends in blues in the upper left corner diagonally. USA family and friends are red, white and blue in the upper right. Current friends turquoise and lime green swooshing through the middle. 

Turns out doing it this way means that each signature block has to be planned individually.  So it has been a lot of cutting, placing, sewing and repeat.   Which I guess is why it stalled. I was waiting for more signatures to have an idea of the finished size and where the middle would be.  Before her birthday I had a teacher help with the friends but that didn't work so well. So for her birthday she got a bag of sections and pieces and the promise of an eventually finish. Amazingly she was surprised!

The flamingos are from a nightgown that Grandma made her.  Both dot fabrics are the linings of humbug bags from her birthday.

After her birthday I thought if she helped get signatures it would move along but that hasn't happened either. So now I am finishing it as is with blanks in the blank spots and she can get signatures on sections rather than blocks. 

On a whim I took it down this weekend and laid it out on the floor to see what I could do. I wish I had remembered to take a before picture or even better a picture of when it was on the wall - actually 2 walls in a bunch of sections.  No wonder I couldn't get it figured out. Being able to lay it out all together makes a big difference.

There are 3 more rows that go across the top. I can't reach that high to get them off the wall easily and the colors on the 4th and 5th rows have already been determined so it doesn't affect my color choices on the other sections.  I am not agonizing over whether or not each fabric choice is perfect.  I am just working at progressing.  I am hoping to at least get all the fabrics chosen and hopefully large 3x3 sections sewn together before I pick it up.

Go see some other design walls - and floors! - at Patchwork Times.