Modern Take on Road to Oklahoma - Logan's Quilt

The Road to Oklahoma quilt options can create a wide variety of finished products, but I chose to stick with four fabrics to end up with a more modern take on this traditional quilt pattern.

Road to Oklahoma

Like so many other people, I'm drawn to the modern batik fabric prints, and this quilt was no exception.  I chose four fabrics in hopes of having a more modern version of this traditional pattern, and I think I did well.

I made this quilt for my nephew, Logan, for his college graduation gift.  He loves green and has an appreciation for hand crafts.  I can remember him as a child, sitting next to my mother, his grandmother, watching her assembling a baby quilt for one of his cousins.

I had done some research on the variety of ways this quilt pattern could be assembled with regard to color placement.  The center of the star and the larger square are four-patch, so many renditions I saw have color variations in those four-patch blocks.  The number of different fabrics also plays into the mood of the finished product; a two-color quilt can have a big impact (image red and white, or blue and white) and this would also be very interesting as a scrap quilt.

Because I was uncertain of how my idea would play out, I decided to buy a few small pieces of fabric in the colors I wanted to use and "assemble" a single square on a cutting board.

This was my first idea

I then took a picture, and compiled a version on my computer, duplicating the single square and arranging the copies to see how it would look.  I'm glad I did, because the first attempt was not as appealing as what I finished up with.

This is what I ended up with

I also discovered that the pale green that I started with as the light fabric was not as nice as I thought it would be, so in the final color selection I went with a more neutral off-white.

Finally, I decided not to put a traditional border on the quilt, opting instead to fade the layout to the edge.  Instead of doing a full repeat of the blocks to the edge of the quilt, I played around with the layout at the corners and along the edge.  In this case, the corners are a nine-patch block and the edges have a white fill where a partial star would have ended up if the block repeat would have continued.  I've also done this type of "fade", as I call it, on my kaleidoscope quilt here. 

This quilt was professionally long-arm quilted, fits a double bed, and was much loved by a young man headed off to graduate school.

Things I learned while making this:

• Never underestimate the value of a good layout.
• Color and hue placement takes a lot of practice to get right.  Computers can help you feel comfortable to make that final decision.