Celebration: A Finished Quilt

I was the Maid of Honour in a wedding in September of 2013. The summer before the wedding we had two bridal showers for the bride, a life-long friend (truly life-long- she visited me in the hospital when I was born. She would have been five months old). I came up with the idea (thank you Pinterest) to have the guests sign squares of fabric and turn those squares into a sort of wedding shower guest book.

I had no intention of making the quilt myself. Her mother is a skilled quilter (well, she hand pieces phenomenal quilts, but someone else quilts them for her) and her aunt is a very accomplished quilter. After the blocks were signed (the aunt picked the fabric, prepped them and had decided on a snowball design) they made their way back to the aunt. They stayed there for close to two years until I had them "liberated" and tackled turning them into a quilt myself. By this point my skill level had increased which meant that I was more confident to make it into something beautiful.

The aunt had not purchased any of the fabric, other than some not-to-my-taste white-on-white for the blocks themselves, so I decided to use the colours from the wedding itself (black and white with some red accents) instead of shower colours. The bride (now wife) loved the idea and approved a shot of the black and white fabric I sent her, so I got to work!

Here is Celebration:

The quilt is quite large, larger than I expected. I used Kona Black and the damask fabric with all the signed squares. There is a narrow band of Kona Poppy framing the entire quilt.

The signed blocks are scattered randomly. I thought this offered a nice modern feel. I did make sure I balanced out the damask fabric so no one area would be too heavy.

For the back I pulled black and white and red and white fabric from my stash. I also used up the rest of the Kona Poppy, Kona Black and the leftover white-on-white squares that hadn't been signed at the showers. These are 6" squares.

A wild, bold, LOUD patchwork for the back.

I did straight-line quilting for this quilt, echo quilting the black seams on the front while loosely quilting the edges of each signed block. It makes for an organic sort of grid pattern.

I kind of love how the quilting looks on the back.

I used some leftover binding combined with scraps of red leftover from the quilt, and I did some FMQ on the Poppy borders from the front using a variegated red and white thread.

The binding was a fun addition.

The bride (now wife and mom to a one-year-old) loves her quilt, even if it was two years later than was the plan. Her husband also loved the idea and they think it is a great keepsake. They took some time to re-read each signed block and think about the pre-wedding festivities. It was nice!

I'm so pleased to have put this in the hands of my dear friend. On to the next finish!

Lynn

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Fridays!