I virtually met Donna Schwartz Mills at least 10 years ago, if not more.  She has a daughter who was a year younger than our oldest daughter and we exchanged both phone calls and emails quite often, when we first met.  She was also instrumental in helping us find a bit of history and fun in Sacramento during our family’s camping adventures on the west coast in 2006.  I worked with her, way back when, to sell advertising for her home-based business website.

Her daughter is graduating this year and I asked Donna if I could make her daughter a quilt.  Who can turn down a quilt?!  Donna was excited about the possibility and asked her daughter for color combinations that she likes.  The only other thing I had to work with was that her daughter’s middle name is Rose…but her daughter does NOT like pink so it is a little difficult to find roses on fabrics that aren’t reds and pink.  But, I took my daughters and I to our local quilt shop and almost immediately found a beige fabric with blue roses on it!  Then came choosing other fabrics to use in the quilt – and I relied on my teenage daughter to help me with a yeah or no way as I was cruising through the bolts of fabric.  Of note, we chose complimentary fabrics and not coordinating fabrics from the same line of the fabrics that were designed to go together from the same fabric designer’s colorway.

We finally settled on the fabrics you see below – and I am a firm believer in the fact that these fabrics will make a wonderful quilt for my virtual friend’s daughter’s graduation!

How far ahead do you plan your quilt projects?