Quilt for a Computer Geek

Before I tell you about my new project, I wanted to introduce you to a new monthly feature on the wonderful Lily's Quilts Blog. Lynn is approaching her blogiversary and to celebrate she has launched Fresh Sewing Day. This will be a monthly event where bloggers are encouraged to share a project they are working on that makes them happy. She has a wonderful sponser for this event, Sew Fresh Fabrics, who are offering wonderful FQ packs as a giveaway to tie in with the Fresh Sewing Days. Head over to Lily's Quilts for a chance to win or to check out all the other projects on show. Or why not add your own project! Just click on the button over on the sidebar.

Meanwhile, the time has come to make my lovely, computer geek of a son Felix, his 21st birthday quilt. I can't believe he is going to be 21 in August!
Some of you may remember how upset I was when he went off travelling in September last year. Well I got over this remarkably quickly! But he is still away and not coming back till June, so it seemed like a good idea to try and get the quilt finished before he returns.

I really want to make something that Felix will think is cool, rather than just another of the quilts he has seen me make for his cousins over the years (they have all had a 21st birthday quilt). So I did some brainstorming with the other 2 computer geeks in the family, his brother and his father. After looking through my favourites on Flickr and this great Japanese patchwork book I have, we hit on the idea of a quilt that would be like the colour tool on a computer screen. Like this...

Jacob, my youngest, said Felix has been staring at this in the corner of the screen for years and years, and we all thought it would make a really striking quilt. And I was happy is it looked like it would be quick and easy too! I also think the idea owes something to the above mentioned Lynne's amazing penguin books quilt that she made for her sister. Jonathan especially loved this quilt when I showed it to him and I think he had that in mind when we hit on the idea of the colour tool.

So off I went to Mandy's lovely Simply Solids online shop too buy this pile of Kona charm packs plus a quantity of Snow and Charcoal.

I few evenings ago, I got them all spread out on the floor (on top of an oilcloth) and started planning out the colours. Here it is nearly finished. I labelled each square with a numbered sticker.

I am still missing a few of the lighter colours at the moment (more charm packs arriving from the very helpful Mandy next week!), so I started on some of the darker, top bits of the quilt. There will be 9 rows of 8 colours with the an extra top row of neutrals.

Here are the dark squares for the turquoise, blue and purple rows. Jonathan had the idea that I could put a 'close window' button in the left hand corner of the top border, and an 'expand' (can't think of the correct computer terminology, but you now what I mean!) button in the other corner. I am still thinking about this, it might be fun, or then again it might spoil the whole effect.

This is certainly a project that has made me happy this month, mainly because I have finally got started and because I really like the way it is turning out.
Don't forget to head over to Lily's Quilts and have a look at all the other Fresh Sewing Day projects!