Cheyanne's Wedding Quilt

A few months ago, I got a call from one of our aunts telling us that our cousin was getting married and she wanted me to make the wedding quilt!  I was beyond excited and completely flattered that she even asked me to do it.  :)  I've had to keep the whole thing under wraps for two months because she wanted it to be a surprise for the bride, but now that the wedding is over I can finally share it!

We started off with this color scheme.  She wanted black/white/gray with just a touch of Tiffany blue.

Fabrics from left to right, top to bottom:  Kona black, Kona Steel (?), Bella Graphite Gray, Bella Zen Gray, Kona White, Something from Joanns in my stash, Something from my LQS, Mystique by Lila Tueller, Alison Glass Sunprint Feathers, Mystique again, Riley Blake Chevron in gray, Bella by Lotta Jansdotter, Riley Blake Houndstooth in Gray, Riley Blake Quatrefoil in Gray, Something from my LQS, Riley Blake Damask in Gray, Mystique by Lila Tueller, Moda Bella Robins Egg Blue, Riley Blake Medium Chevron in Aqua.

I sent her links to my (extensive) Pinterest boards, and this is the photo she chose as our inspiration for the quilt pattern.  I took this idea and drew up an over sized Queen pattern from it. 

SOURCE

Fabrics were cut,

Blocks were pieced,

And before I knew it, I had a finished quilt top!

We tried it out on our Queen size bed to make sure it was long enough.  As long as it doesn't shrink excessively with it's first wash, I think it will work!

And then I proceeded to spend many, many hours quilting it.  I went with these three designs mostly, with some other stuff thrown in:

(It's easier to see the quilting from the back.)  Feathers, Angela Walters style hourglasses, and this Fabulous Flower.

There is also a little bit of dogwood quilting (in the quatrefoils and black scrolls), and lots of echoing on the large damask/floral and chevron prints. 

The little squares all got the same design I used in Korina's quilt.  I LOVE the secondary pattern this creates!

This border was the hardest to choose a design for, and I was running out of time, so I went with some quick Angela Walters inspired Dot-to-Dot quilting.  It's not the best looking, but it will do!

I took TONS of pictures of the quilting, but they were all taken with my phone the morning of the wedding and not many of them turned out.  Here are a few more:

This is my favorite block.  I love this blue color and that white floral Mystique print. 

Here's a shot of the back.  As you can see, I used matching thread for the top/bobbin and matched my threads to the fabric, so that back looks a little crazy.  But also a little cool.  We wanted something simple for the back, so we went with a white on white damask print and you really can't tell there is a print at all!  Oh well.  I was a little limited on my choices of backing fabric, because I didn't want to spend a fortune on it, but I was happy with this one because it was 108" wide and I didn't have to piece anything!
Another note on thread.  I used Aurifil for everything except for the quilting on the blue.  For that I found a really pretty, shiny blue Sulky thread.  I was a little nervous about it at first because it's not as strong as regular cotton, but I paired it with cotton thread in the bobbin and it seemed to work fine.  It's really pretty.

Of course, I finished the binding in the car on the way to the wedding (which was a 5 hour drive...luckily).  And here is proof that plenty of blood, sweat, and tears went into this quilt:

I was just telling my husband a few minutes before this happened "Wouldn't it be just great if I poked myself with a needle and bled all over this quilt hours before we're supposed to give it away?"  Yeah.  Luckily it was only a tiny bit.
And for the record, there were actually no tears shed in the making of this quilt.  I enjoyed every minute of it! 

And finally, a few shots of the finished quilt in my Grandpa's living room, right before heading to the wedding.  This quilt is HUGE and it was SO windy outside, making it really hard to photograph.

I really had to scrounge to find enough fabric for this label (I fuzzed out the name for the recipient's security).

Hubby is standing on top of a couch in this picture:

And here it is being displayed at the wedding.  I'm still just so honored that I was asked to make this special quilt!  I hope the bride and groom love it!

Quilt stats:

Started: July 3, 2015

Finished: August 21, 2015

Fabrics: See first photo

Batting: Pellon Nature's Touch 100% Cotton

Thread:  Mostly Aurifil (Silver, White, Black), with some Sulky rayon (Blue)

Finished size: Approx. 104" x 104"

Recipient: Cheyanne and Husband

Methods used:  Piecing, Machine Quilting on my home machine

Binding: Hand stitched to the back using a Kona Jelly roll

Hours Spent: Approximately 50 hours

This quilt was goal #10 on this quarter's Finish-Along list.  Linking up:

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Baby Chevrons

Welcome new friends and old followers!

This is my entry for the "Baby Quilts" category in Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival.
Check out the other baby quilts HERE.
Check out the whole festival (it's awesome, set aside a huge chunk of time) here:

Would you believe it, this is the ONLY quilt I have completed since the last festival!  (Well, if you don't count my BYU quilted growth chart...)  First we moved (so much cleaning and packing...) and then I decided to open an Etsy shop and I've been busy making smaller things for that.  Oh, and a few birthday gifts, like my totally awesome Harry Potter and Dr. Who Pillows. 

Luckily, a friend of mine is having a baby girl soon!  Yay!  An excuse to make a quilt!  I LOVE it when that happens.  Unfortunately, I learned to quilt after most of my friends started having babies, so I haven't had nearly as many opportunities as I would like to make baby quilts.  So this one was special.  Baby quilts are so satisfying to make because they come together so quickly and they are such a wonderful, personal gift to give.  Now I just need my sisters to start having babies...  Someday.

Anyway.  For those of you who are visiting for the first time, here it is!

If you squint a little, you can sort of see the ombre pattern running left to right.

The quilting on this one was originally inspired by Christa's Charming Chevrons quilt.

I tried something new (for me) with this quilt.  I don't know about you - but I REALLY love the clean crisp look of a quilt that has not been washed yet.  I know there are lots of people who like the soft crinkliness of a freshly washed quilt, but I feel like my quilts lose a little bit when they get like that.  Maybe it's the "old fashioned" look?  I don't know.  I like things crisp and clean.  So with this quilt, I prewashed my batting and my flannel backing (but not my fabric - I used a charm pack, that would have been a disaster - maybe part of the problem?), in hopes that the flannel and batting would shrink BEFORE I washed the whole quilt together.  But when I pulled the freshly washed quilt out of the dryer, it was still pretty crinkly to me.  Maybe it was just my quilting choices.

 Not horrible, this quilt is still super adorable, but it just looks a little different.  What about you?  Do you like the clean, crisp look?  Or do you like the soft, crinkly look?  What can I do to avoid the crinkly?  Ah well.  I still love this quilt.

Quilt stats:

Started: August 5, 2013

Finished: August 18, 2013

Fabrics:  Amelia and Favorites by Me and My Sisters; Kona Steel and Bison

Finished size: 31 x 25 (post washing)

Recipient:  MM baby girl due in November

NOW.  Go and check out all the other fabulous quilts in the festival!
Thanks for stopping by!  You're awesome.

P.S.  Wanna win a new sewing machine?  Check out the giveaway Amy is hosting.  Why do I need a new machine?  Well, mine is getting old and I don't think it's going to last forever.  I bought it used and it has seen a lot of use since then.  It might be time to upgrade.  :)

My Favorite Thing

Recently, the ladies in my church group got together for a night of sharing our "favorite things."  Everyone was asked to bring something that was their favorite, with the intent to give it away to someone else.  It was a really fun activity, especially for me, since I am still so new to the area and don't know a lot of people.

Of course, my favorite thing is sewing, so I had to make something handmade to take to the party.  In the end, I went with potholders, because they are the easiest thing to make from a favorite block or two, they are quick, and don't cost much to make.

I even used some of my favorite fabric!  Leftover Me and My Sisters fabric from THIS quilt.

I had fun choosing designs that I love right now and ultimately ended up making two hot pads, so that I could make four blocks.  Two with triangles and two with squares.

 This was a fun project to use scraps on.

I kept the quilting simple on the chevron hotpad, and ended up doing an off-center spiral on the squares hotpad.  Different, but fun.

I tried something new and used a thermal fleece (kind of like insul-brite, but I have the feeling it's not quite as good) and a layer of terry cloth inside my hot pads.  I haven't been too impressed with the quality of thermal fleece I have, but I still have a bunch and I need to use it.  I read about a lady who uses only two layers of cotton towel in her hot pads and never gets burned.  So I compromised and used both.  I hope it was a good choice.  I tried testing them out before taking them to the party, and they seemed to work better on one side than the other.  Hopefully the lady who picked them doesn't have any problems.

I hand stitched the binding down because I wanted it to look really nice.  Machine binding just seemed too risky. :)

I love my Sketch fabrics!  They go great with everything and they make wonderful bindings.  Plus, using different colors of the same fabric helped my two hot pads appear more as a set.

For the loop, I tried this little ribbon technique I found at Chasing Cottons.  I felt like it would be easier and have a more finished look than the traditional looping of the binding.  The ribbon is sewn in with the binding on both sides.

The party was so fun!  It was great to get to know some of my neighbors and to have a chance to tell them about my favorite thing to do.  Now I know who all the quilters are in the area and I found out there is a guild here in my tiny town!  There are a couple really amazing quilters here.  And the best part?  My hot pads were the first item taken!  Wahoo!  I was really happy that someone actually liked my work.  I guess I'll keep sewing.

Speaking of which - did you hear I'm starting an Etsy shop?  Things are moving right along.  I've got materials to make a whole bunch more baby items, packing supplies, and a whole system for keeping track of everything.  Just need to nail down a name.  Do you have any ideas for me?  Would you mind taking my little poll at the top of my sidebar?  Thanks so much!  I'm excited to get this thing going. :)

Chevron Baby Girl Quilt

I'm so excited to share this new baby quilt with you!  It's been finished for two weeks already.  As soon as I heard a friend of mine was having a baby girl, I knew I had to use up some of my precious Me and My Sisters charms.  Everyone else around me seems to be having boys, so I jumped at the chance to make something girly.  Everything else was put away for two weeks while I focused on this quilt and finished it with plenty of time to spare. :)

I peeked at my friend's pinterest board and found a few chevron inspired items.  That was all it took to get me started!  I've been dying to make a cute little chevron quilt!

I forgot to take a picture of the completed top, but I did take a few of it after it was basted.  I almost went with white (or tiny dots on white) for the negative spaces but that would have required a trip to the store and I was too impatient.  So I pulled out these two grayish fabrics and used every last bit of them.  I LOVE how the dark, scrappy background looks against the bright colors!

I attempted to arrange my HSTs so that the quilt had an ombre effect to it.  Can you tell?  Squint a little and you will see it. ;)

The quilting for this quilt was inspired by Christa's Charming Chevrons quilt.  Of course, mine has a different spin on it - I quilted lots of straight lines with a row of pebbles in the background and kept the quilting to a minimum in the colored parts.  I think it works great!

I really love pieced backs and debated doing something cute for this one, but I had this piece of pink dot flannel that was the perfect size and just seemed to fit so I ran with it.  Doesn't the back look so fun?

I tried something scary and quilted all my straight lines with gray thread on top to match the neutral colors and pink thread on bottom to match the back.  Thankfully, it worked!  No pink dots on top or gray dots on bottom.  Whew.  Then I decided to quilt the colored zigs with matching thread on top and bottom, so if you look closely you can see a few lines in different colors on the back.  Of course, when it came time to FMQ the pebbles - using a FMQ foot instead of a walking foot, I could NOT get the tension right and was forced to use gray thread on top and bottom.  Otherwise I had scary little dots poking through where they weren't supposed to be. 

I love how the pebbles add so much pretty texture to the quilt.  Pebbles are awesome like that.  

 For the binding, I auditioned several different prints from my stash, but ultimately I had to go with the same pink dots as used on the back.  The plan was to save time and fabric and fold the backing over to the top for binding, but of course when I was trying to trim my quilt top and batting after quilting, I managed to cut a huge hole in the backing.  Ah well.  So I tried out Alyssa's technique for Perfect Binding.  I think it turned out okay, although I still ended up with 3 or 4 pesky sections that didn't get sewn all the way down.  The tutorial is great, and I'll probably try her method again (she used Elmers glue instead of pins or clips!) although it is time consuming and it was a little difficult to work with the thick flannel fabric.  Hopefully the quilt will be nice and soft.

You can see some blue stitched lines in this photo...

I tried one more new thing this time around - I prewashed my batting!  (Actually, I prewashed the flannel backing as well because I know how much flannel shrinks.)  I really love the clean lines you get on a freshly quilted, unwashed quilt.  Sometimes I feel bad when a quilt is washed and all the hard work I put into quilting it sort of fades away, you know?  So I prewashed the batting/backing.  Since this is a baby quilt and is going to get washed lots and lots, I wanted to do a test wash before gifting it.  Here are a few more photos pre-wash:

And finally, fresh from the dryer:

In my opinion, prewashing the batting didn't really make a difference.  (NOTE TO SELF:  Next time try hang drying instead of machine drying.)  Although the quilt still looks basically the same when you take a step back, it has lost it's "fresh, new" look and has adopted the "wrinkly, old-fashioned" look.  Ah well.  I suppose I should call it "crinkly and cuddly."

 You can see the crinkly look better here.  What about you?  Do you prefer fresh and crisp or crinkly and cuddly?

Quilt stats:

Started: August 5, 2013

Finished: August 18, 2013

Total hours (I was curious, so I kept track this time):  11 hours (5 hours piecing the top, 4 hours quilting, 1 1/2 hours binding, 1/2 hour designing/layout)

Fabrics:  Amelia and Favorites by Me and My Sisters; Kona Steel and Bison

Finished size: 31 x 25 (post washing)

Recipient:  MM baby girl due in November 

Edited 6/13/14:  Linking up with Fort Worth Fabric Studio's "Oh Sew Baby" series.  Check it out!