Designed by Brady

Oh, to tap the uninhibited creativity of a child! Earlier this summer I was privileged to witness this marvel. Oh to have an ample stash in which to shop! I do, and I was happily able to turn that creative design into a useable item. The designer was no less a marvel than my own sweet grandson, Brady. This was definitely a DrEAMi! Drop Everything (including an e-zine project, yikes) And Make It!

When I was staying with Brianne and Brady for a few weeks back in June/July, Brady was looking through my Photos app on my MacBook. He came across the house block I'd designed for project #1 for the RSC2017.  I showed him my drawing in my graph book. He was absolutely fascinated that something I drew in the graph book, I then made in fabric, into a useable item.

So another day, when I was sketching/doodling, he wanted to as well. He wanted to put a border around one of my 'fooling around' sketches, so I said sure.  I'd been playing again with HRTs. I started another design on the bottom half of the page while he worked on the top half.  This is what he designed:

All the purple numbers and letters and figurings are mine, as well as the 'star' at the bottom; the three odd random black lines are shadows of blades of grass!

For his birthday, I had the idea to turn his design into an actual little quilt. He often munches his breakfast or lunch on the weekend, or his snack, sitting on the couch, watching TV. Crumbs find their way everywhere...think almost 9-year-old boy at the time when I witnessed this, and Grandpa MacGyver and I helped clean up... Enter lap placemat idea using his drawing.

He obviously liked my HRTs (half-rectangle triangles) because he drew several more at random. However, he covered up most of the sort of star I'd been playing with.

Me:  So why did you do a big scribble in that spot?
Brady: Scribble? That's not a scribble, Nana, that's a big diamond!
Me: Oh.  Of course.

His current favourite colour is blue. Up until recently it was always red. For a little while it was purple.  But now it is blue.  Interesting (red+blue=purple😉)

Flimsy is done

Even though I was twitching tempted to change a couple of the HRTs (the ones under the diamond), I followed his sketch exactly. And I'm so glad I did; it makes me SMILE to realize my eye roves continually all over the quilt. I decided on 2" squares as the grid. I used a navy blue Moda to make the triangles he'd shaded with pencil, and then a piece of shimmery white for the background to tie in with his shimmery gel pens.   He used his those gel pens to colour that checkerboard border, with no advice from Nana; totally his own colour choices too!

I wanted some stellar quilting in that big diamond. Feathers were a little too girlie, and didn't go with the masculine angles.  Angles! Spirograph design! Yesss!

Angela Walters says, and I loosely am paraphrasing her, "It depends how much you love the person as to how much quilting you put on the quilt..."(wink wink), and because I love Brady so VERY MUCH, I took the time to put this easy-but-time-consuming design in his big diamond.

Here is a shot of his sketch beside the finished quilt. The sun showed off the quilting and the YLI  purple and navy variegated thread I used.

I kept the quilting in the background to a minimum, just some echoes around the diamond with Sulky metallic, and stitch in the ditch for the HRTs. I did two straight lines through the checkerboard frame.

and the label:

I used a flannel from my stash for the backing, nice and cosy on a little lap, and a scrap of Warm 'n Natural for the batting. The binding is more of the purple batik. It's now been taken by Grandpa MacGyver to the designer himself, who was pretty tickled to open it.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  designed by Brady
Size:  22.5 X 18.5"
Fabric:  scraps and stash
Batting: Warm n Natural
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann cotton; quilted with YLI 40 wt variegated in plum, Aurifil white 50 wt, and Sulky metallic


Linking up
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Busy Hands Quilts