Wedding Quilt

In my very first post, I mentioned one of my current works in progress - making a signature quilt as a guestbook for our upcoming wedding.  Blogging about the process on this might be s-l-o-w going, since we won't make real progress on it until after the wedding in June.

The Excel sketch of the planned layout for the quilt.

We are requesting scraps of fabric from our families to make up the patterned corners.  We are hoping to have it filled with pieces of family history.  We have a good start - fabric from a dress my mother made me and from maternity clothes she wore.  But the rest is yet to come.

I've designed the quilt based on several different sources of inspiration.  I started by searching Google images for signature blocks, and decided I liked the basic diagonal signature block.  There was one image that stuck with me and resulted in the layout I've planned above.  Of course, just now in trying to track down that image, I couldn't find it.  (Edit: Found it!)  Instead, I stumbled on this quilt that adds four-patch blocks into the mix.  I like it, since it makes it bigger and adds visual interest.  So perhaps the layout won't be set until I have the signature blocks together and up on my design wall!

This tutorial at p. s. i quilt for siggy blocks provided the shape that I wanted with the most straightforward description.  I made it slightly bigger (five inches finished instead of three).  I made up some sample blocks out of stash, and decided that the tutorial instructions are the best.

The blue and tan blocks on the right are the mock-ups.

The problem with this form of assembly is that we will be receiving most of the patterned fabric later - after the blocks need to be signed.  That's an issue for another post.  I also discovered that I'll have plenty of half-square triangles left over.  I plan on using them to identify the stories behind the fabric, either as a border or maybe as a pieced strip on the back.

So far, this is what I have: fifty-odd white 5 1/2" squares.

Not the most exciting process post, but it's what I have!  I'm really looking forward to playing with all the scrappy fabrics I hope my family and friends send my way and pulling it all together into a cohesive final product.  

A Completed Project!

Christmas runner - Pieced by Kate, quilted and bound by Eric

Now that this Christmas present is (finally) delivered to my soon-to-be in-laws, I can share it.  (Only two months late!)  On the upside, they have just remodeled their kitchen, and so didn't have a place to use it this holiday season.  Also, Eric's mom pointed out that the greens go with the new decor!  By the time we left after visiting, it was already gracing their dining room table - I'm so happy that she liked it so much!

The full effect laid out on our table.

(Psst, can you spot my mistake?  I love the nine-patches set on point, I just wish I'd cut my setting blocks so it, you know, showed the points.  Oops!)

One of my big challenges with blogging might be my problem with naming projects - I'll have to try to get better at that.  Suggestions welcome!

I have more to share from my Pennsylvania trip coming soon...

Fabric Finds!

I did not get much quilting done this last week - I have hit a block in my current project and I'm mulling and auditioning fabrics for it.  Plus my little sister came out to visit me, so I was busy doing other things.  I did get to play show and tell with quilt tops she hasn't seen.  We also went to Goodwill looking for picture frames (and totally struck out), but did come home with about 17 yards of cotton quilting fabrics for $5!!

A sample of the approximately 17 yards!

We actually found four curtains homemade from the light green pattern, so that is slated to go up in our office.  My sister took home about two yards, and I got to keep the selection you see above.  Some really neat patterns (that orange batik! those adorable bears!) and some things that round out my stash - I have next to no pink, and certainly no bright pink.  But now I do!

Design Wall

Blogging regularly is a challenge - I'm impressed all over again by bloggers with full time jobs and especially with children!  My only excuse is that in the last month I have picked up a new hobby - shoveling snow!  We have six-foot tall snow piles in our driveway and four-foot tall snow walls at the street, and we're running out of places to put it.  Actually, even with several snow days off of work, I haven't made any progress on any quilting projects!  But I did manage to set up an external drive to house my millions of photos that were slowing down my computer, so I have new photos to share.

My most exciting quilting project recently was my $4 design wall.  Here's the secret: a POLARVIDE fleece throw from Ikea.  The white one even has holes along the edge, so it was easy to hang from my picture molding with bent-out paperclips.  And ta-da!

The throw fit perfectly onto the wall I had available, and putting fabric up there definitely perks up my sewing nook.

On the wall are a pillow cover made from leftovers of my blue and orange quilt (with some green being auditioned), the orange and blue scraps I've been sewing together as I try to keep my machine's tension intact, and trial signature blocks for our wedding quilt.

WIPs, WISPs, and UFOs

I acquired my love of quilting and fabrics from my mother at an early age.  However, as the titles of this post and this blog suggest, my experience in quilting mostly consists of works in progress and unfinished objects (or as I once heard them called WISPs - works in slow progress).  See, I love selecting fabric and pulling coordinating stacks and cutting and piecing.  But I get stuck at quilting and I'm too cheap to send my tops out to be quilted.  Last year I finally got my own sewing machine after six years without one, taught my fiancé to quilt, and learned that he actually enjoys and has talent for quilting!  

In light of this history, I thought I should start my blogging with an inventory of my patchwork in progress.  One of my goals for this blog is to prod myself to complete my WIPs and new projects.  

- Dragon Quilt (spring 2000)

Status: Completed

This wall hanging applique is, I believe, the only quilt I have totally completed.  It was a project for my eighth grade English class at the end of a unit focused on dragons.  

- Star Log Cabin (pre-2004)

Status: Quilted, needs binding

This was my first real quilt, directly from a pattern book: Quilt in a Day Star Log Cabin Quilt, by Eleanor Burns.  I went all-out in my fabric selection - blues, purples, and whites with star motifs.  The most major mistake was trusting my pre-washing enough to put a dark purple batik next to a white - this is a quilt that will definitely not be washed.  All that's left is to bind it, but the quilt is on the opposite side of the continent from the binding and me!

- Broken Bricks fat quarter quilt (pre-2004)

Status: Pieced Top

This quilt top went together very quickly from a fat quarter package I think I got as a prize in a quilt shop hop.  The bright red and bold fabrics were not my style, but they worked really well in this pattern from Fat Quarter Quilts by Mliss Rae Hawley.  I stopped at the top on this one because I don't have a plan for where to use this top.  

The fabrics used in the quilt - cut into strips.

- Purple Dresden Plates (started winter 2004)

Status: Hand Quilting In Progress

These blocks were pieced entirely by hand, and the top will be hand quilted.  I think I finished the top over Christmas break in 2004.  This means that it has been basted and on the quilt hoop for six years and it is half done.  

- Old Timey quilt (fall 2009)

Status: Portions of blocks pieced

I found a pattern called "Sowing Seeds" in a secondhand copy of Love of Quilting magazine, which is a variation on a traditional Virginia Star pattern.  I am using mostly Civil War period reproduction fabrics and plan on making it queen size.  I have all the diamonds cut but I can't get my Y seams to lay flat, so the quilt has stalled.  This is intended to be a quilt large enough to cover our bed, which makes it my most ambitious WIP.  

Excuse the horrible horrible picture!

- Eric’s Christmas Quilt (Dec. 2009)

Status: Quilted, binding in progress

I taught Eric to quilt on this one.  He chose the simple Mine Shaft pattern and selected the fabric himself.  Both of us cut and pieced, and he completed the quilting and is currently binding it.  The student has become a master, and I love it!

Again, excuse the awful lighting in this photograph...

- Teals and Oranges lap quilt (spring 2010)

Status: Quilting in progress

This quilt was inspired by a charm pack of 5" x 5" squares at JoAnn.  I usually prefer to match my own fabrics, but the combination of teals and oranges had already been in my mind for our living room and the pre-cut squares made a nice change from the finicky piecing of points in the old timey quilt.  This one is partially quilted, but issues in tension on my machine have held me up.  I need Eric to take over!

- Wedding Signature Quilt (for summer 2011)

Status: Planned and prototyped

For our wedding in June we are planning to make a signature quilt as a guestbook.  We are collecting fabric from friends and family and will use it to piece the top; the white strips will be signed at our wedding and other events.  I sketched it using the highly advanced graphic design tool of Excel!