I was Featured!

Go over to Modern Day Quilts to see my M & N Wedding Quilt!  Thanks, Heather!

I Forgot!

I meant to add this video of my youngest walking all over the fresh quilt!  What is it about babies and quilts on the floor?  She did this for several minutes.

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.

Almost There...

Well yesterday, I made quite a bit of progress on the M & N Wedding Quilt - I finished the quilting, and made the binding strip.  Today, I attached the binding to the front, but that's all I think I'll be able to do today.  It'll be done a month before the wedding, so I'm glad I was able to finish early!  That's unusual for me.

Here's a sneak peak of the quilting - I really LOVE how it came out!

Also, today's the last day of the giveaway.  Have you entered?  Do you qualify? 

Label Love

Can I just say for the record, out of all the labels I've done (which isn't many) this is my favorite?  Check it out...

Once again, I used the old window-light-box technique.  Which means I type out what I want to say in a Word document, picking a cool font.  Print it out, tape it to a window, tape the fabric over the paper, then trace with a micron pen.  I love looking at this one.  Weird, I know.

Here's the whole back, which I kind of like better than the front.  But whatever. 

I think I'll get this baby basted, so I can quilt it at the LAMQG's weekend sew coming up next week.  I was thinking of pebble quilting?  I think?  I need more practice with my free motion stuff, so I'll play around with different styles until I'm ready to quilt it.

Nap Time Progress

I'm pretty excited, because I finished Nathaniel's quilt top!  But I'm changing the name from "Nathaniel's Quilt" to the "M&N (Painting Inspired) Wedding Quilt" - how's that for a name?

Anyways, back around Christmas time when I was in Florida, I sketched out what I wanted to do with my inspiration from Nathaniel's painting.  I'm very much a visual person, so I have to sketch everything out if I'm not using a pattern.  I pieced all the little colored blocks together as soon as I got back from Florida, but when it came time to cutting all of the background fabric, I ended up breaking the sketch up into five sections, so it made more sense to me. 

I got the first section done yesterday, but I was able to finish the other four today while my girls were napping! 

So here it is - excuse the bad picture.  I tried taking an artsy picture outside, but the sun was going down, and the colors looked kind of washed out. 

I'll be doing the back improv-style, with leftover fabric from the front.