Wedding Guest Book Update

This quilt has the most pieces I've ever worked with. Seeing as it's only my third quilt, that's not saying much, but hey... I have the privilege of putting together my friend's wedding guest book, which is a quilt. I've loved reading other people's well-wishes (is that bad?). I've also made it a point to say some prayers for the bride and groom, their union, their transitions, and their new family. I've loved the whole process.

It's currently sandwiched and draped over my sewing chair, just waiting for me to get my *new* walking foot attached to my machine. I've never used one before—any advice??

Here are some sneak peaks:

I blurred this pic so the bride & groom can still be surprised by their messages.
Just enough of a sneak peak to whet their appetites. ;)

All Photos © Me

This quilt has been a total and complete experiment. Thanks for being my guinea pigs, L and M! I've tried some new tricks, which have turned out spectacularly, if I do say so myself!

Peace,

New Work-In-Progress

It's been a while since I started a new quilt project. Here is the very beginning of one of my newest works-in-progress (WIP):

I am making a wedding guest book/signature quilt for one my friends who's getting married in July. It'll be a cozy toss blanket, not for a bed, so she wanted it to be something she loved and could have out, no matter how she decorates her house. I'm a firm believer that blues and greens can go with anything. We looked at a bunch of fabrics that could be both color-neutral and gender-neutral, and this is the print we settled on:

It's from the Free Spirit's Dolce collection. Those flowers are huge and gorgeous! I plan to fussy-cut this print to take advantage of them. I'm so excited about building a quilt around this print!

I also ordered this floral to go with it (from the same Dolce line).

Once the fabric came in, my mom and I went to Joann's to find coordinating solids.

The green perfectly matches the leaves in the first floral (though the picture doesn't show that). And the yellow adds a nice non-matchy-matchy touch. We also decided to add a white-on-white print for some variation.

The guests will be writing their wedding wishes to the bride and groom on the solids and white fabrics. I wanted them to be light and not really patterned so the signatures will really stand out. I mean, that's the whole point of this quilt, right?

To add a little depth to the whole thing, we picked out this great starburst print, and the green and white dot will be the binding:

And I nearly forgot, this stripe will border the whole quilt top.

All Photos © Me

My wonderful mother took some time on her visit to cut the stripe very precisely so it'll match up all the way around. She really is the best!

My job this weekend is to begin cutting squares. And rectangles. It'll be loosely based on this quilt pattern.The nice thing is that all I have to do before the wedding is cut the pieces. I'll sew them together afterward, since the pieces will be easier for the guests to sign than a huge quilt top. (Did I mention the groom is well over 6 feet? I want it to big enough to cover him for a nap on the couch.)

Peace,