First Finish for Student Letters

I finished the Student Letters quilt yesterday. Woohoo. It's actually the first finish - I got the top done (click to make bigger):

Terrible photo (too dark), but a fantastic quilt. Here's a photo from across the room to get a better idea of size - 58" x 70"

Yep, that's my sewing area where the dining room would normally be. Don't you like my classy chandelier?  ;-)

I added two more rows to the quilt than I originally intended to. It just seemed to need it AND I used up all the individual letters that ya'all sent me except for two. How about that. I could have fit them in, but decided to include a block from me. I wanted to include some of my love in this quilt.

I like Dub on its side and how it curves up and in to the quilt, kind of leads your eye in, at least that's how I see it.

Baby and Clank (it actually looks like "clgnk" which is why it ended up in this quilt rather than Slither Eek Boo) were dominating when they had all their background fabric on them. But having them oversized allowed me to cut them down to the size I needed. Along with the new "boo" block in the lower left corner, I think they help balance out the big pink Hope block.

I didn't put much of a border on this quilt. It's surrounded by beige that will finish off at approximately 1 or 1.5 inches. Some of the letters were too close to the edge and I don't want them lost when I go to cut off the edges and put on the binding.

(never mind this bit - the quilt now has a name) How about a name for this quilt? It's had alternate names as I've pieced it (besides the boring explanatory Student Letters 2005-2010).

Slither 2: The Revenge of Christmas
Slither Merry Christmas
Slither Baby (sung to the tune of Eartha Kitt's immortal Santa Baby)
Purple Orange Baby - which was all I could see when those words were all grouped together
Baby Clank - the most recent name. (sung to the tune of The Supremes Baby Love)

the only problem with the Slither options is that I use just the first word to refer to the quilt and Slither will always be Eek Boo...  I could always spell out Slither Baby - unless that's too confusing. I'm avoiding the word "Hope" because I already have a few quilts of my own with that title (and that does confuse me!)

I'm sure there's a fun name I haven't thought of at all.

Wheee - we have a winner. I love Forest Jane's suggestion of  *drum roll*  Alphablitzen
Love that name for this quilt. Woohoo!

Oh, and the two leftover letters? They're in the drawer waiting for more UnRuly letters and words to join them. You know me, I LOVE playing with these. The next quilt of orphans will look completely different when all ya all send more letters and blocks. That includes any newbies who might be reading this. I'd love your experiments and the letters that just didn't work out the way you wanted them to...

Of course you can keep your own letters (if you have to) and make an orphan quilt of your own. Look at how fabulous all of Lynne's UnRuly letters and orphans are - Julie is going to piece them together  for her and it's going to be a wonderful. These kinds of quilts are such a great peek at your own history of work. Looking through Lynne's leftovers and trial blocks I see some bits from Daft Zebras and how she worked on Chocolate for the 9 x 9 color quilt and I could go on...

Now everyone who has a block in here needs to come to my house and sign the quilt. How about tomorrow?