Wedding Wishes

To commemorate Rob and Melissa’s wedding, I had the people (young and old) sign fabric squares with wishes and thoughts for them. That was in August, 2005. Melissa and I struggled with finding a color combination and some fabrics that she liked and in the end settled on these. It was hard because Melissa isn’t familiar with the quilting process and couldn’t really envision what I was talking about when I showed her a printed pattern and a stack of fabric. She remarked a couple of years into this project that she’s not really sure why she picked blue – but too late!

The signature squares are incorporated into a redrafting of a Hunter’s Star and pieced by hand. In the lower left corner is a picture of the place they were married – the Mormon Temple in Logan, UT. I took one of the pictures and printed it on fabric. It was hard to pick a picture – we had so many to choose from as it is gorgeous there. I spent last year in “Finishing Year” and this year is “Quilting Year”.

It took me forever to get up the energy to baste this monstrosity. I realized that was the sticking point for me – I don’t have a space large enough to lay out the quilt and keep it flat and perfect while I baste it. Previously, I’d used pins for basting and I can tell you I’m not a fan – even when you pin from the backside. The pins just snag the thread too often and they add a lot of weight to the quilt. used Sharon Schamber’s basting technique to baste this quilt. This technique is AWESOME! This king sized quilt was basted in about three hours.

It’s folded and stored in a pillowcase at the moment while I get all the various tops basted. I figured I would get them all prepared while I have the tables set up!

!! UPDATE !!
Quilting has begun (May, 2010) – I’m so embarrassed because it’s been so long coming. I sure hope they feel the wait is worth it!

Four hearts and ribbons

The quilting motif I designed for this - a bow in a heart

!! Update !!
So there’s 99 blocks in the quilt. That’s 99 of the hearts to stitch. Today’s update: 13 completed

next step - binding!

Sept 25th update: quilting completed! Next step is the binding. I’m going to put in a gold piping and bind in the dark blue fabric.