Extra-Long Twin

For the past two weeks or so, I have been working on a quilt to be used in a college dorm room. For those of you who don't know, the beds in college dorms are an unusual size: "extra-long". It's basically a twin bed with an extra 5" on the end. Since a standard quilt size for a twin bed is 65"x95", an extra-long twin quilt would need to be 65"x100".

Now, I don't know about you, but my quilts are never the recommended dimensions. I do try though to get them as close as possible. So, I figured that with 10.5" blocks I could set it in 10 rows with six blocks per row in order to end up with total dimensions of 63"x105". Hey - I sure am glad to know that engineering degree is coming in handy!

Speaking of degrees, I got mine from Virginia Tech - the same institution where this quilt will one day be residing. The school colors of Virginia Tech are orange and maroon: quite a challenging color combination for a quilt. I decided to minimize the orange by using it as the center of a Log Cabin block, rather than the traditional red or yellow. And then, for the full orange effect, the back of the quilt will be solid orange.

My goal is to have all the blocks done by the end of the month. This is quite an ambitious goal for me, but I should be able to do it provided I don't get sidetracked by another project. It's just so easy to be sidetracked when I have so many ideas floating around in my head. I started making a list and had to stop when I got to ten. I think that writing them down was a bad idea. It makes them more real and harder to ignore.