Two Weeks Early...

I finished the M & N Wedding Quilt!  In case you haven't been reading throughout this process, here's some background.

One of my husband's college roommates is getting married.  I really wanted to make a quilt for Nathaniel and his future wife, but had nowhere to go for direction.  So I did a little detective work, and checked out Nathaniel's website to try to find some kind of inspiration.  Finally, after going back a while on his blog, I found a picture of him in front of this painting hanging over his couch.  That was it!  I found my inspiration!

At first, I thought of replicating the painting almost exactly, but then I thought that would be too much.  So I decided to do kind of windows of the painting, and just put in little sections throughout a neutral background.  Nathaniel is very much a minimalist, so I thought that would go with his aesthetic better. 

So I sketched it out, and bought my fabric.  I planned on just using Kona solids, but while I was shopping I discovered Kaffe Fassett's shot cottons, and I fell in love!  I did end up using one Kona, though - Natural.  The shot cotton was an absolute dream to work with!  I love it, and definitely plan on using it more in the future.  The colors are gorgeous, too!  And it crinkled up so nicely after it was washed and dried!

This was such an easy quilt to put together, and it went rather quickly, which made me happy.  I did add in a few more windows than I originally sketched out, but I held myself back from adding too much, trying to remember Nathaniel's minimalism (I've never met the girl he's marrying, so I only had Nathaniel to go by.  I hope Martha has similar taste!).

For the back, I wanted to keep it super simple, so I did!  I had just enough of the putty to make up the whole back, and then I took all of the scraps that I had from the "windows" on the front, and put together a long strip.  As far as that strip goes, I didn't cut anything, which I thought was kind of cool.  I just used what I had, and added in some of the putty to make it go the whole length of the quilt.  Oh yeah, and I made the label, too.

Then came time for the quilting.  I had no idea what to do!  Finally, I settled on a herringbone pattern that I saw on one of Latifah's quilts, and also on something that Jamie was working on.  So I drew it out with one of those washable fabric markers.  As I started the quilting, though, something else came to my mind.  I'm sure it's been done before, but I have no idea what it would be called, but it's kind of a zig zag.  However, instead of echoing the zig zag from the line before, each line was opposite of the previous line.  Does that make sense?

I chose pretty much the same color thread as the background fabric (which I think is called Putty), and I think that's the one thing I wish I could change - you really can't see the quilting, and the quilting is my favorite part!

Then I bound it, using the machine for the whole thing.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I do not see hand stitching the binding in my future anytime soon.  Machine binding is just so much quicker!  It's not perfect, but each time I do it, I get a little better.

So that's it!  I hope Martha and Nathaniel like it, and I wish I could give it to them in person, but since I'm not going to the wedding (too expensive), I can't.  My husband will deliver it for me, though.