Congratulations Amanda

Amanda, We love you and congratulations on graduating from West Virginia this weekend.  This is the quilt that I made as her gift for graduation.  The photo isn't great since I took it after dark in a room with lots of windows and had to use the flash.  It's really much greener than the photo shows.  The quilt is made up of scraps and several fat quarters of green, mostly batik, cotton fabric that I purchased (and then didn't use) for another quilt.  I literally patched until I got to the width that I wanted, about 55", and the length was dictated by the size of the words, about 85".  I knew I wanted it to be a bit wonky looking, and since I don't have patterns for the letters, I pieced until they looked right.  I hand quilted it using #8 off white perle cotton (thank you Clare for the idea) with bigger stitches.  I quilted rows lengthwise along the quilt about 3-4" apart and then stitched down the center of each letter for emphasis and to get some quilting into the letter areas.  I used Warm and Natural cotton batting, and a bright turquoise/lime patterned cotton for the backing.  I labeled and it was done.  It took about 5 days from start to finish with a couple late evenings.  My niece will never get another quilt quite like this one and I know that she will enjoy having it.  All your family and friends are proud of you.