Keeping Myself in Stitches

Last year at the auction raising money for our juniors to have an all night, safe fun party following their graduation ceremony this spring, I offered up a custom graduation quilt as one of my donations. Placing a minimum starting bid of $500 on the quilt I knew would scare most people away. But a quilt made of t-shirts put together by one of the moms the previous year had sold for $1500. From past experience I knew how much it would cost to gather up all the specialty fabrics representing the interests of the graduate, not to mention any photos or embroidery that might be included on the quilt. I was will to donate the time and materials, but only if the class was really going to benefit financially from my endeavors. After all, I have a quilt to make for my own daughter as well. As it turned out, only one person bid on the quilt. I have been in contact with the winner, and she has given me insight into her daughter's interests and favorite things. I showed her examples of my quilts and she selected the block arrangement she liked the most. I want to make the quilt large enough to snuggle under, so I need 70 total squares for the base of the quilt. So far I have found and sewn 33 novelty prints. I am concerned that I will not be able to find an additional 37 that will relate to this girl's interests. It is so much harder to make a quilt like this for someone you don't know. I may end up alternating plain squares with the print ones. But the last thing I want is for the mom to feel that she is not getting her money's worth from my efforts. No pressure! I think I'll take what I have done so far and show it to the mom so I can get her input on how to proceed. At least with Katie's quilt she has selected a pattern she likes that will showcase some of her photos from France. That will be a piece of cake after this one!