Serendipity...

...or timing is everything!

I finally, after much procrastinating, started on THE wedding quilt - the biggie - the one for my just-getting-married-for-the-first-time-brother.  The one with the awesome fiancée.  So, this quilt had to be special.  A number of years ago - at least five and probably more, I was looking for some fabrics to make my mother a table runner for her dining room.  I wanted to match her curtains which had pastel embroidery on them.  I found this beautiful selection of Mirror Ball Dots by Michael Miller at a quilt show.  I scooped up all they had - 12 different colors.  And then couldn't find the perfect pattern to use with them for the table runner.  Then she changed her curtains.

When the wedding of the century was announced, I knew I wanted to use those Mirror Ball Dots to make this wedding ring quilt...

I've made it once before for my son and DIL.  I made it scrappy like the pattern called for.  This one would not be scrappy.  I had 12 FQs and figured I'd pick 8 to make the rings.  Eight rings in each section, 4 sections, so 4 rings of each color.  No problem, after all, I had a FQ of each one. 

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know where this is going, right?  Of course one FQ was not going to be enough to make 4 blocks.  Unless you carefully pieced all of the scraps.  Then you could eek out three.  If you cut exactly right.  And I to use all 12 FQs.  So I cut and pieced and pieced some more and had enough squares.  But, I wasn't happy.  Some of those pieced blocks had really small pieces.  I'd wind up having seams next to seams.  I was really bummed, it just would look right for such a special quilt.  I scoured the internet and there really was no more of this fabric anywhere.  Story of my (quilting) life.

 
Then a few days later, I'm perusing blogs and, OMG, Fat Quarter Shop is advertising that Mirror Ball Dots have been re-released!  What???  I think I screamed in my office (luckily my quilt-buddy-at-work walked in just then so she could share in my happy dance!)  After the shock wore off, I ordered a half-yard of each of those Mirror Ball dots.  I wasn't taking a chance that I wouldn't have enough fabric this time.  No siree!!

Aren't they luscious?!

Some new colors.  A few are the same.  And now I have enough Mirror Ball Dots to make a second wedding quilt.  At least.

I chose this platinum dot for the binding...

So, we're back on track and I'm loving this quilt.  The background is an elegant white-on-white with a lovely sheen to it.  Hard to photograph though.  I need to find the perfect backing now.  I have about a month and a half to finish this.

Oops...this happens at lot.  At least once in every block.  You need to factor in seam-ripping time.

  

So, the moral of my story is that procrastination can be a good thing.  If I'd have started at the beginning of the summer, I would have used those pieced pieces and the quilt would have been finished before they re-released the Mirror Ball Dots and saved this wedding quilt!