My March 2020 One Monthly Goal is to make a high school graduation quilt top for my great-nephew, Hayden. Over the last few months, I’ve been accumulating fabrics to use in this quilt with the theme primarily being camping which is a major family activity/interest, but I’ve also purchased some fabrics that reflect some of his other interests such as fishing, bicycling, and cowboy hats and boots. Below are some of the 5” squares that I’ve cut. I will need a total of 54 squares, so I will be cutting 2-4 squares from 18 different fabrics.

I needed to fussy cut most of the above squares which I both love (for the opportunity to feature specific items) and dislike (because of how much fabric I end up wasting). I do have a fussy cutting tip to share that I learned from the amazing Elizabeth Hartman at Glamp Stitchalot 2016. For my 5” squares, I cut 4.5” squares of freezer paper and centered the square over the image I wanted to cut and then pressed the freezer paper square shiny side down. Then I placed my ruler on the square and added a 1/4” seam allowance around each side to get a 5” fussy cut square. See my deer fabric below after cutting two squares and getting ready to cut one more. I’ve been watching a lot of old Great British Baking Show episodes on Netflix, and the bakers often talk about feeling “gutted.” That’s what I feel I do to my fabric when I fussy cut!

I will be using Amy Ellis’ Soirée Quilt Pattern for Hayden’s quilt, but I will be cutting all of the snowball triangles from one fabric (Kona Cadet) and the white in Amy’s pattern will be Kona Windsor.

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: March 2020 OMG.