I was talking to a lady at Joann's one day who was doing something similar for her preschool class. She had assembled many different textures and colors of fabric and was going to make books out of them. She even had some tulle or netting to use in there.

My only concern with the project would be launderability with all of the different fabrics. I guess you'd probably want to prewash everything as you would do with a quilt.

you will be blessed for this gift of love ..

What a wonderful idea. I bet he will love it. Please post pics when you decide what to do.

I would put a wide satin binding on it since he likes the feel of satin. Walmart used to carry them, I don't know if they still do but they should be available in any LQS.

Children like that can sure tug at you heart can't they? We have a little girl with Downs Syndrome in our church and although she can be a pistol at times she's still my little sweetheart. She seems to like tiny things so I took some fabric that had little 2-3" paper dolls on it, stiffened them and their dresses and made "church dolls" for her. The dolls, dresses, and accessories all fit into an Altoid box that I carry in my purse. When she sits with me she points at my purse to let me know that she wants to play with them.

Wow! Thank you all so much for the great tips! Even though I have an idea in my head, my quilts sometimes take off in a different direction once I start them. This will likely end up being somewhere between an I Spy type quilt with each block being a differnt color or texture and a crazy quilt where they all just merge and blend at random. From all your suggestions I will: use wide seams, back the satin with muslin, prewash all fabric, use satin blanket binding, incorporate ribbon into the design, and top stitch everything! (That will give me a good opportunity to use my decorative stitches on my machine!) Thank you all sooooo much!

That's what we're here for. LOL

Wonderful idea. Is he autistic?

I would imagine pre-wash all fabrics first even teh dry clean only.

He will love it.

No, although he does exhibit some autistic charachteristics that hasn't been diagnosed yet. He was born with his skull bones fused so as he grew his brain had no where to go. They did surgery at one year. His forhead protruded too much so that was corrected at the same time. He also has an extra chromosome but so far they havent' figured out exactly what effect that will have, if any. He is very hard to describe. At first glance he appears fine but when you watch him for any length of time you can see problems with interacting with people, speech, etc. The doctors feel that over time he will catch up with himself, but they are vague about what his long term challenges might be.

I agree, he will love it.

I would talk to the parents and make sure he isn't alergic to any fabrics or material. And also the colors he likes the best and the ones he doesn't like. You might want to even make a double of the quilt for him so that if it becomes a security blanky his mom has one for him to hold and one to wash as they get dirty. I can't tell you how much I wish that I had a second quilt look a like for both of my kids. It would make putting them to bed much easier. Especially when the laundry is taking a long time to dry. The crazy Quilt idea is a good one. Simple squares of different color fabric and size a quick and easy way to go. Good luck to you and let me know how it comes out. I have two autistic boys at my church and we are moving the nursery to a larger classroom so that they boys can remain in the nursery longer and we are going to decorate it for autistic needs. I was thinking about doing a quilt like what you are doing for the room. But being a newbie I am scared to death of taking on that large a project. Good Luck and God Bless.