a quilty stand-in

In case I've been giving the illusion that I'm organized, this is basically what my planning process looks like. Actually, it was much more chaotic before I curated down to the fabrics I would actually USE in the quilt. There were fabric squares and yardage all over the place and much hemming and hawing over whether or not I'd chosen a good pattern. Forget the card table, the floor is where it's at. 

And here is the fabric that started it all. While we were out last weekend exploring our newly reopened Joann's in search of quilt backing for the two tops I've got completed, I came across this amazingly cute minion print. My brother is a minion fan - like his car is yellow and named Kevin. He's turning 40 this year and I am incredibly bummed that I won't be traveling home to celebrate in person. I'd been turning over the idea of sending a quilt stand-in instead and seeing this made me decide it was definitely a good idea. These little dudes are going to be the backing fabric. 

I found a neat inspiration pattern online that was very geometric and looked like it was really well suited to solids. I did think about buying all new fabric but challenged myself to search my stash first. It wasn't at all straightforward to find masculine fabrics in my menagerie of flowers and cutesy prints, but I am quite happy with what I came up with. He likes orange so there needed to be some of that, and definitely yellow to minion up the front, then I just sort of played around with options until I decided that the blue ikat print from Amy Butler's Lark collection would be fussy with regards to orientation of the HST blocks but totally worth it to tie everything together. It's got primary colors in it that will make this bright and fun, like Kevin the minion. 

I didn't want to do a white background and that was all I had a lot of in my stash, so back to Joann's to search out a good gray. I bought them out of medium gray Kona (only 4 yards, don't judge) with the expectation that I will find other good uses for the extra yards. I do have a big quilt in the works and another one already planned and on the shelf, but these fabrics were calling to me. It was the work of less than an hour to get them all cut into squares and ready to go. I am feeling so inspired by the bright colors and the geometric design, I can't wait to get started!