anne's wedding quilt and more

The one college roommate that I am still in touch with (a few were doozies, so...) got married last year - on new year's eve.  I had full intentions of going to the wedding and presenting her with a quilt (you knew she was getting a quilt, I'm sure), but life intervened and the hubby and I ended up not going.

I planned to wait a few weeks until they returned from their honeymoon and life settled down again before sending the quilt.  And I forgot.  For months.

Last week, Monday, I remembered.  I stuffed it into a box (literally) and sent it off.  This week, you FINALLY get to see it!

A few years ago I told you more about Anne in this blog post.  I'd made her a housewarming quilt years and years ago and then when she had a little girl, I sent a baby quilt for Gabriella.

Also a few years ago, Anne started dating a guy named Ben.  He started showing up in facebook posts and I wondered how this would go.  She has bad luck with guys, dating one dud after another.  But I thought his presence in her social media was a good sign.

Turns out he's not a dud!  They took their time getting to the being married part of life (he has a son from a previous relationship, but Gabby is his), but that's okay.  After so many false starts, who could blame her?  Of course, they need a quilt for the two of them!

It started out with difficulty choosing a pattern.  We don't see much of each other in person, so that made it harder to decide.  I ended up settling on the Exploding Heart quilt.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it in cool colors (purple, blue, turquoise, green) or red and white.  So I went shopping.  But on the way there, I had time to think and decided the cool colors might be a little obnoxious.  So I decided on reds.  I don't have a lot of red in my stash, so this trip was justified.  (I did supplement from the stash, so not too much guilt.)

I have no photographic proof of that trip, though.

I've blogged about most of the process, since I was pretty sure she doesn't know about this blog, so I'll summarize here.

I made a LOT of quarter square units...

Which required a LOT of trimming...

And created lots of trimming monsters like this guy.

I laid out one row at a time, making sure the row above made sense before sewing it together.  I had a lot of help...

This was all done before the addition of Salem and Lily, so it wasn't as hard as things are now.  (Anything - ANYthing - is fair game for Lily to attack, no matter where it is or what you're doing.  It doesn't even need to be moving.  I have many, many, many holes from her claws all over my body!)

Fairly quickly, I had the top together, despite ALL the pieces.

I procrastinated some, but mostly because I wasn't sure how to quilt it.

I had a back...

...which is way more Valentiney than I wanted, but there was little else that I found suitable.  (The biggest hearts are maybe as large as a dime - so it's a fairly small print.)

But one day it hit me how it needed to be quilted and I was off and running!

I quickly bound it in one of the red prints that I had enough of, bought a gift bag and card and was stalling about the label, but was ready to go days ahead of the wedding.  (That label never takes long, but I always procrastinate doing it.)

I also failed to get photos until last Monday, but I would have gotten them before I gave it away had I made it to the wedding.  But I DID get photos!

How did I quilt it?

"anneandbendandanneandbenandanneandben" etc.

I started at the top corner and wherever I left off on one line, that's where I started on the next line.  Mid-word.  The very bottom row (I used the blocks as a guide for height), I had ended at "ben" on the previous row and knew it would not fit exactly again, so I quilted "lovelovelovelove" and it fit perfectly!

The finished quilt?

I'm very glad I chose this pattern.  I had my reservations at first, but I think it's perfect and they love it.  She seemed to know she was getting a quilt, so either she knows me too well (I mean, she did get two other quilts already), or she's found the blog.  (If she found the blog, she kept her mouth shut about knowing about her gift!)

Quilt stats:

Pattern: Exploding Stars by Slice of Pi Quilts

Size: 72"x72"

Pieced and quilted by me!

In quilty news here it's been mostly the stitch book:

The last two days of page 8 don't look like much.  I did a lot in the earlier days, so it made the later days harder to figure out what to do.  Just some echo stitching and such.

Page 9 is using the very last scrap of this fabric that was from a quilt that predates blogging (I think) and when I looked at the quilt I thought it was in, I was wrong.  So I have no idea where this went, but it's the last scrap and I love it.  But remembering how to do that blanket stitch - yikes.  The above photo represents two days, as I was just too exhausted on day 41 to get it done.  (It was a rough, crazy week at work.)

And I just ended up making running stitch hearts for the remaining days.  I had planned other colors of hearts (even cut them out) and smaller and larger stitched hearts, but this just seemed to be what the page wanted.

Today starts page 10 and I have no idea what it will be, but that's a problem for later today.

In other quilty news, the color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month is purple.  I found some bonus half square triangles in my bin that is being used for the stitch notebook pages, so let's use those up!

I have lots more 1.5" squares, so there will be more 9-patch construction in the coming days.  These are my reward after sewing something for the kitties.  (I'm out of large enough pieces for the heating pad covers, which is okay, but I've switched to more hammocks just to use up the fabric that I have.)

AND!

I cut the fabrics for the mystery quilt!  If anyone is interested in joining, it's still free (but won't be forever).  Next week we start sewing!  (I also need to cut some for half square triangles, but until I get more information and decide how I'll be making them, I haven't cut their pieces.  Nor have I cut the borders and binding - that can be fudged later if needed (probably), so I'd rather wait on those pieces, too.)

While I was sewing, Toby was making sure I was doing it right.

...or was he?  (His head is actually facing towards my sewing machine, but hmmm...)

Later I went to sit in my chair in my sewing room to read (it's a nice comfy chair and has room to snuggle kitties too), but found this:

Guess I'm not gonna sit there for a bit.  (Toby is not in his poof bed because Lily probably poked him too much.  She is a little brat and he is afraid of her.  All maybe 5 pounds of her.)

Lily was clearly tired out from attacking the water in the washing machine...

Yes, she was biting the water.  She was all wet and angry when I pulled her out to close it and let the machine go.  She is fascinated with water - she helps us shower, too...  Never a dull moment around here with these furry beasties!

Time to get busy for the day.  The hubby is home this morning, so I suppose I should spend some time with him?

Happy quilting!

Katie