The Un-"Raider's" Quilt

OK, so I couldn't wait to show this. Been working on it for a couple of weeks. Have to tell the story first: The first quilt I made (one a blue ribbon btw ;) ) was a log cabin quilt that I made for my mom. She has it in her room in her cabin in Utah. Well, with the economy being what it is, my parents have had to go back to work {more than} full time in Vegas. So they have been spending pretty much all their time there in a pretty much empty house. I used to share the house with them before I moved, since at that time they were only there for about a week out of the month, they had a room and a bathroom and the rest of the house was full of my stuff-hence the reason the house is now pretty much empty. Anyway, I was talking to my dad a few months back and asked if mom had her quilt in Vegas or if it was still in Utah, he said she didn't want to carry it back and forth so it was in Utah.

I said:
'do you think she would want one for the house in Vegas?'
'I'm sure she would'.
'What color you think would be good?'
'Ummm......black and silver'
I just laughed and said 'oh yeah Mom would LOVE that!'

Lemme 'splain...My dad is a die hard Oakland Raiders fan. Like VIOLENT Raiders fan. So I was like :slap forehead: I have never made a quilt for my dad! Duh!

So, I was thinking of finding some licenced fabric and doing the whole couch throw thing. But then I found this great pattern. I couldn't decide if I wanted to make a wall hanging or a bed quilt. But I knew I wanted this pattern so to make a bed quilt I would have to make it like four times and put it together. So I decided to get his input (slyly of course)
'Do you think mom would rather have another bed quilt or one that goes on the wall?'
'The wall doesn't get cold'
(I should have known that I would have gotten a smart alec answer). So after a long deliberation, and by that I mean I made the man decide.

I went off to my favorite LQS and went on a mission for fabric, first, I found this AMAZING border fabric:

Then it was a mission for the other colors:

The borders gave me some trouble. Apparently when I printed the pattern, it wasn't quite to scale with the design, so the borders were too big to fit the corners. Had to do some creative tailoring, but I guess it came out in the end. With those, this is what I came up with:

I am hoping VERY MUCH to be making a trip home this winter so I plan to give it to him then. :D

UPDATE 

The walhanging is quilted, and ready to go:

Mended Hearts

As most of you already know we are a blended family. I had three children and my husband had two children when we got married two years ago. I started this quilt before we got married...two years later the top is done. Maybe for our 5th Anniversary, he will get the gift I intended to be a wedding present. (D'oh)

Anyway, I started with this Mended Hearts pattern that I got from the quilt show in Henderson Nevada, years before I even met him. I thought it was a great idea as a gift to make for someone else, I never thought it would be applying to me.



I thought it to be quite appropriate for out situation as we not only fill a hole left in each other's hearts but we feel a sense of completion with each other. But since there are 5 other little people in this relationship, I felt they needed to be represented also. So I added little hearts to show them as part of the completion. Since 'the man' is represented in dark green, I thought the boys should be depicted with varying shades of green. Likewise, since I was represented with dark pinks, the the girls are pictured with little pink hearts. I used a white on white rose printed background that I have had forever, I think it was one of the first fabrics I bought when I started quilting and then realized that using white is really not all that common. The pattern was also missing something for me in the design so I altered that just a little.



Center



Instead of having the hearts alternate sides, I kept them all on the same side, then on the mended hearts at the bottom, I filled them in. I have been trying to decide on borders. I am not sure if I am going to do a pink border with a green border sort of hugging around it (showing his protective nature) or if I will do the border sort of log cabin style with pink on one side and green on the other.



Inner Borders



I also picked out a fabric to use as a border when I originally bought all of the fabrics two years ago. As things go, I am not really feeling it anymore. I had picked it because it had a fairly balanced blend of both the pink and green, but now it feels sort of old fashioned to me and I just don't know about it anymore. What you think?

Outer Border

Maybe if I do a slim border it won't be so 'tea party'...I don't know.

UPDATE

Opted to skip the outer border and just use the floral print for the binding. I didn't have enough to use as backing so I used the same white as the background. The original pattern has very minimal hand quilting on it. I also did very little quilting on this one. Here it is...the first {hopefully of many} quilted wall hangings in our house.

He liked it by the way. ;)