Papa don't peak ready for longarm! Everyone look! Except dad!

She has done it. My granddaughter Jana just finished the top for her father's quilt. The idea for the quilt began in the fall of 2012. Jana wanted to do something special for her dad. He likes red and black, and she likes Ohio Stars and Friendship Stars. The plan came together. We gathered fabrics, and started to made star  kits for each block. We got off track for  a few months when it was discovered that Jana had a serious problem with her spine and needed a spinal fusion, in December 2012. It was a nine hour surgery. The first month was a challenge, but by mid January she was back to school. And before long, back to sewing, back brace and all. Here is the initial layout. That is a smile of relief that those blocks are finally done. I am proud of her for sticking with it. She took some breaks and we also have been working on the Craftsy BOM 2013 quilt. Now to sew it together. She had reservations, but she sticks with things and got it done.

Whew! that was a lot of cutting, ironing and sewing!

These are the fabrics for the border.

Jana wanted to stay with the red, black and white theme. After 25 stars she was done with them. But the quilt needed to be bigger. Borders were the answer.  She realized that she needed something different to frame the quilt. (It's so nice to just be able to shop grandma's stash). We had two yards of the tree ring fabric so no piecing was needed for the first border. At first she did not understand why we did not just sew the border with a straight seam, but when she saw the results she understood how much better mitered borders look.

What attracts us to certain fabrics? I love anything organic, having to do with earth or plants. When Jana saw the tree rings she said, "The last thing we learned about this year in school is that tree rings help you know how old a tree is."  That was not the only reason she picked  this fabric, but it does add an interesting element. We laughed that when she sees this quilt on dad's bed it will always remind her of the 4th grade.

This is the first quilt where  Jana added a border. She learned to piece the border and  measure the border from the middle so her sides stay even. She was surprised how easy it is to make a mitered border.

Here is how you piece together your border.

Trim the extra fabric

Measure at the middle.

Here goes the borders.

We sew on an oval table, so it can make it difficult to keep the quilt from falling off the edge. Jana used an old chair to hold the extra fabric.

Will the sewing ever end?

So happy how the borders came together.

Jana's picture.

Our favorite block

All Done! Off to the quilter!

Red or Black backing?  Look what we found at Fabric.com

The perfect backing fabric

What a special quilt: Designed and Made by an 11 year old daughter with love for her father.

From a proud grandma! Dad's birthday is the end of September.. The quilt goes to our long arm quilter Sandy Erwin this weekend. Another happy event to end this quilt story is Jana sees the surgeon on the 27th of June and all indications are the back brace is coming off!  Hurray! Update. All went well the back brace is history!