Wedding signatures

2018 started off as a big year for us, with our second son getting married in February at our beautiful holiday place. I don't have a photo of the couple, but here's the setting:

We were fortunate enough to have a day like this too, the wind (often present down here) dropped, the sun shone and it was glorious. I asked guests to sign a square of calico fabric, with the intent of making a signature quilt. They were very obliging and with the bride's suggestion of using the bridal party colours (pink and grey), I set about searching my stash for appropriate fabrics. 

People wrote wonderful sentiments, including this one: ["May your love, like this quilt always keep each other warm"]

I used the cut off half square triangles to go around the edge. I was improvising the pattern as I went along, needing to add some coloured squares to supplement the signatures to extend the size of the quilt. 

I simply quilted in the ditch around the signature squares - they need to be the stars after all. Then I had fun quilting some ribbon candy in the cream negative space. An inside shot as the light outside doesn't seem to show it up well. 

I do still need to add the binding, but that will have to wait until I leave this beautiful spot and can access my walking foot at home. 

Here's a close up of some of the ribbon candy and that lovely signature fabric for the border. I was so pleased to find this in my local quilt shop - the staff there are so helpful, but unfortunately it is closing down along with others of that chain as the owner is retiring. 

For the backing, I chose a soft pink and the title on the selvage was: Peace on Earth - though the fabric itself isn't specifically Christmas, it blends well. 

So there it is, a wedding memento for them to treasure as they head overseas to live and establish themselves. But I see holidays in the future for us as their destination, New Zealand is a beautiful scenic place to visit. 

It feels good to have this completed (or it will once I get the binding on) on the heels of my Bookcase quilt. Hope you've been having fun with your quilts too. 

Until next time, 

Lynn

Books galore

I really like books, I used to be a librarian, so I guess it figures. But I also have a friend who really likes books and she has a big 0 birthday coming up in June. So last year I began making some shelves (of books) like this. A great way to use up scraps of fabric, such bright, fun colours.

And I used the letters that my machine could produce and began to name some, using a list of 100 most popular or well read books. That was in about August last year. Along the way many other projects came and went, but I did this project in bursts. 

It didn't see much action over Christmas and into New Year, but around March I thought I'd better get going on it again. Then this month I realised it really needed the big push. And here it is, only needing its binding on - which I hope to complete tonight. 

I chose black for the background as I checked out a few bookshelf quilts on line elsewhere and found the black appeared more realistic to me. I stippled it so that it flattens a bit, enabling the shelf contents to stand out more. My friend also collects tea pots, so of course I had to include some of those: 

I had great fun doing various patterns on the spine, some spirals, leaves, ribbon candy, feathers etc, I just went to town wherever I felt like it. And I went up and down on both sides of each book, so there's quite a bit of quilting on those 14 sections of shelving. 

She also enjoys cooking and often makes Delia Smith recipes - so Delia's titles feature. I was pretty happy with the tan fabric I found for the shelving. I has rows of small white dots so quilting lines around the edges of the 'shelves' seemed to work pretty well. It was all done on my domestic machine, free-motion, even the straight lines. I don't have a walking foot for this machine, so I've just learned to do it free motion rather than using a normal foot which tends to put too much pressure on fabric with wadding. 

Here's a shot of the backing, just a light colour. I used a light grey for the stipple in the bobbin, and black of course on the top. 

For the remainder I used a variegated thread which worked well. 

I know my friend will enjoy it and she has made just a couple of quilts herself so she'll have an idea of what was involved. Now I can leave it lying around and enjoy looking at it until I give it to her in June. 

One last shot out on the decking:

Now, what's next......

Lynn

Confetti and things

While technically I'm supposed to be making a Postcard From Sweden quilt, since mine may have many of the colours, but not the placement, I think it looks rather like confetti. Its also probably smaller, as I'm intending it for a new baby - not a specific new baby, just one that is bound to come along in the next few months.

This is just the flimsy at this stage, and I'm wondering about a navy border - I know a border is not part of the original, but once again, can't help myself doing something just a little different.
I am looking forward to seeing how others quilt theirs, whether people stick with the rows of wavy lines, or get all wild and creative. What works best? How to let the pattern and colours shine without taking away that ability to see different shapes everywhere.

I've also been busy quilting a top for a friend. She thought it was just a little big for her, so I offered as I really enjoy the quilting. Can you believe she found the centre part of this quilt in a second hand shop?

Just the blocks, not completed. I'm sure there's a story there, hopefully not work that family members or friends had to get rid of following a death, rather someone just shelving it for so long that in the end they just gave it away. Whatever, my friend was happy to complete it and so I was happy to do the quilting.

I had fun doing various shapes on the trees and houses

And you can't really go wrong with a stipple in the background. Since I'm away from home at the moment, I sent her the photos and she seemed pretty pleased. I'll get it back to her in a couple of weeks.

And then there's a little peak at the bookcase quilt I'm making for a friend's 60th birthday coming up. She's not a patchwork blog reader, so she won't see this here. Her birthday's not for a couple of months yet, but it's nice to get ahead of the game when you can.

This is proving to be great fun to quilt. But as I packed for our holiday place, I left one vital spool of thread behind. 

Here it is, as my husband's still home and he took a shot to ensure he passed the correct spool to a friend who's coming to our holiday place too - how fortunate am I? I needed something that would enable me to use black thread on the top, but since the backing is much lighter, I needed a softer grey to not stand out too much, but also not show through on the top. And this happened to be in one bobbin. But of course one bobbin was not sufficient, so thank goodness for friends and husbands I say!

Three projects are just not quite enough though, so I'm also working on a fourth, but more of that later next week I hope.

Until next time,
Lynn