Bloggers Quilt Festival - The Wedding Quilt

For this Blogger's Quilt Festival (hosted by Amy's Creative Side - thanks Amy!), I am featuring the quilt made for our family's Wedding of the Century!   I was able to present the quilt to my brother and his new bride at their wedding on October13th.  I think they loved it o:)

Unfortunately, I couldn't get very good shots of the quilt.  My camera decided to die out on me after one photo - that I waited until the morning of the wedding to take.  I grabbed my iPad to take a couple more shots.

There is some background to the making of this quilt - you can read about it here (because there's ALWAYS a story). After much rearranging, angst and conferring (thanks, Becky!) about the placement of the rings to get the right color balance, and making two replacements for rings I didn't think were working, it was as good as it was going to get!

Colorwise, it wasn't really what I had in my head when I started this whole project.  I was going for more of a pastel look.  But because of the fabric issues (again, discussed in THIS post), it wound up being much more colorful. 

I quilted a large allover pantograph (by the time I got to the quilting, the wedding day was barreling towards me - no time for any intricate custom quilting!) using my new favorite Glide Thread in Pearl.  I used the platinum Mirror Ball Dot for the binding and made this cute label for the back...

Quilt Stats:

Wedding Rings - #94

Size - 87"x87"

Fabrics - Michael Miller Mirror Ball Dots and white tone-on-tone

Quilted by: Me
Started: August 2012  Finished:  October 10, 2012 

Best Category - Bed Quilt

The wedding was held at The Black Bass Hotel in Lambertville, NJ.  A most beautiful setting..but the weather decided to get downright chilly - we were shivering in the 50s at the outdoor ceremony!  The next day of course was a balmy mid-70s.  But, at least it didn't rain!

Here are some photos of the happy day...

Piping the groom and his men (the bride's two sons) to the alter...

Our favorite musicians - our very dear friends Mary and Jim...

The Vows...

Presenting the Mr & Mrs with a champagne toast!

Kiss...

The wedding party...hubby and I are 2nd and 3rd from the right.

Our daughter, Ariel...

I keep wishing we could hit rewind and do it all over again - it was a spectacular weekend!

Many years of happiness to Cathy & Jeff!

Chopsticks!

I didn't mean to fall off the face of the blog-o-sphere for so long, but with my brother's wedding and trying to get caught up at work and a broken camera, life happened!

I'll post the wedding quilt (which they loved) and photos of the big day on Friday.  

But now, I want to recap my visit to The Round Bobbin a few weeks ago where I attended Julie Herman's  (of Jaybird Quilts' fame) book signing.  It was great to see Julie again and I loved seeing all of the quilts in her new book, Skip the Borders, in person

Julie also was introducing her new ruler - Hex-n-More, which cuts 4 different shapes in 4 sizes - hexagons, half hexagons, 60 degree triangles, and jewels.

Julie has already developed a number of patterns using the ruler with more to come!  I bought Candy Dish to make these cute pillows.  I know I'll be getting more of the patterns to use with the Hex-N-More.

My co-conspirator in quilting at work, Lindsay, let me borrow her newly-finished quilt made from one of Julie's older patterns, Chopsticks to show Julie while I was visiting.  Lindsay's already made two of these with at least one more in the works.

She used Amy Butler fabrics paired with some Kaffe Fasset Aboriginal Dots - everyone who's seen it loves the combination.  And, I'm getting some Aboriginal Dots for my stash!

Here's my version of Chopsticks - not quilted yet unfortunately.  I'm doing a second Chopsticks for a wedding gift for later this year.  Just waiting for the fabric to arrive (because, no, I don't have enough fabric to make another Chopsticks quilt - LOL)

This is one of those patterns...I haven't seen a Chopsticks I haven't liked!

Winners!

When we got home from vacation last week, the mail contained two parcels.  I knew what one was...but the other, we were stumped.  My first thought was "what did I order?"  With the second thought being "what did my husband order"  LOL  Upon further inspection, we found out that we won this....

It's the Sherlock Holmes caroler from Byers' Choice!  Do you know the carolers?  My bosses' wife started my collection about 20 years ago with Mr. and Mrs. Claus.  I wasn't sure about the carolers at first, but they really grow on you.  We have quite the collection now and display them during the holidays.  Every caroler is hand-made - we saw them being made a few weeks ago.  It starts with a wire coat hanger and tissue paper.  Amazing!

A little about this great company...Besides being a wonderful place to work (I understand they win awards for this all the time), the business and family are very philanthropic.  Mrs. Byers started making these carolers at her dining room table in the 1960s.  Now they employ over 80 people and have the most wonderful office/workshop/Christmas museum complex.  We love going there for Christmas inspiration every year.

You may not be aware (although I don't know why not - LOL), but it's the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens' birthday.  Charles' great-great grandson, Gerald Charles Dickens does a one-man show of A Christmas Carol every year at Byers' Choice - he does an amazing job.  For the 200th anniversary celebration, Byers Choice had a full weekend of events, turning their workshop into a  Dickens' village in early September.  Gerald also did some shows about Dickens and we saw a show entitled "Unlacing the Victorian Lady" - SOOOO glad we don't wear corsets anymore!  Every attendee received tickets to put in for chances to win one of the many carolers on display. And, amazingly, we won Sherlock!  Now, to figure out where to put him!

The second package contained this....

How cool is this not-so-little bag?  Made by the amazing Kaelin of The Plaid Scottie.   I love her blog.

And, look at the inside.  Pink Polka Dots - love them!

And, if sending me that amazing bag wasn't enough...she included these fabulous scraps (of which I've already used a few)...

I'm using the bag to carry small sewing supplies.  That way I get to show it off to my quilting friends.  o:)  Thanks again, Kaelin!  Kaelin sells this bag and other great things in her Etsy shop (and she didn't ask me to plug her shop, but I want to because she really makes such fabulous things!)

Vacation's Over!

And now it's back to real life!

We're back from our Cruise to Canada.  Sigh.  Vacation's over for another year.  But, it was a great trip!  A little different for us to go somewhere where the makeup doesn't slide off my face 5 minutes after I put it on in the humidity.

We cruised Carnival for the first time...on the Glory....

Our room was surprisingly comfortable....

And we came back to delightful creatures every evening after dinner...

We saw some great shows in the theater...

And stopped by our favorite lounge every evening for a cocktail...

Mom, Hubby, Step-Dad Paul at the Bar

We stopped in Boston...

Mom, me and Hubby waiting to get on the Ferry to the Constitution

Portland, ME....

We had Lobster Rolls at the Portland Lobster Co.

St. John's....

The Bay of Fundy

and Halifax...

I need to go back to Halifax.  I did not get a Donair (I'm not really sure what that is, but I didn't get one) and Poutine (I kind of know what this is).  Google them.

Anyhoo, Halifax was our favorite port, followed by Boston as a close second.  One of our stops was the Fairview Cemetary where many of the Titanic victims are buried.  It was very moving.  We also saw the Titanic Exhibit at the Maritime museum which had artifacts from the actual ship.

The very loud grinding rumbling noise that lasted for a few minutes during the middle of that night while we were sleeping (well, trying to) was not welcome after a day of being immersed in Titanic lore!  We both jumped up out of bed and shouted "Iceberg!"  We did get $50 credited to our stateroom account for the trouble.  Never did find out exactly what that was.

All, in all, we had a very good time.  It was nice cruising with my mom and step-dad.  We had never vacationed together before.  Wish we had done it sooner!

I can hardly believe it, but I actually DID work on the hexies I brought with me!  I got quite a bit done...

I'm making two of these and I'd love to finish this one up before Halloween so I can give it to my daughter-in-law.

So, now that vacation's over, I'm looking forward to our next vacation - we're back on a Disney ship cruising someplace warm next October!

One Wedding Quilt Done....

I finished the wedding quilt for my daughter-in-law to give as a gift at a wedding she's going to at the end of October. I'm happy with the way it came out. She loves it too.

I used King Tut thread in Date Palm to quilt it - it's one of my staple colors. It blended in nicely with all of the fabrics.

This quilt was entirely from stash. Even the backing...

I hope the happy couple like it!

I'm setting this to auto-post, so hopefully we're sailing our way up to Canada right now and enjoying cocktails on the deck at night. I always like to take a little stitching along with me on vacation (even if half the time I never touch it). I loved this little Fall hexie mat I saw on the cover of Quilts and More and thought it would be the perfect take along project...

Last week, I cut out hexies from some Fall/Halloween prints. These hexies are pretty large at 2"...

It calls for three little embroideries and I got started on those before I left...

Any bets on if I actually work on this???

When is a Schnibble Not a Schnibble?

When it's a Little Bite! Sinta and Sherri's choice for our Another Year of Schnibbles this month is from designer Carrie Nelson's new line of patterns called Little Bites. They are designed to take advantage of Moda's new Candy - 2-1/2" squares. How can you resist?

This pattern is called Speck. I cheated a little, because I didn't have any candy. But I did have some leftovers from my Park Avenue Charm Pack and I made my own candy!

I love it!

The background and borders are from stash, but I think it all works well together.

Not sure how I'm going to quilt it yet...

This one was small, so I took the extra effort to miter the outer border. I should have mitered both borders, dang it!

Tomorrow you can see the parade of Little Bite Specks over at Sinta and Sherri's blogs - I'm sure there will be some gorgeous pieces!

Quilt Show Haul #2

Back to the Quilt Show!

We went to the show on Saturday.  I didn't think it was very crowded for a Saturday.  Which is good and bad.  Good because we didn't have to fight to get into booths or see quilts; but bad because I want this show to continue!  There definitely weren't as many vendors there this year as when I was at this show two years ago.  A friend said she was there on Friday and there was a pretty good crowd though.

One of the first booths we went to was Schoolhouse Quilts.  There were lovely repro fabrics and fabulous quilts all around the booth.  A row of miniatures lined the front of the booth.  My friend, Lindsay, and I started talking to one of the women in the booth and we were saying how striking the quilts were. She said they represented 25 years of work - all hand pieced and hand quilted.  As they are talking I'm looking at the woman's name tag.  It was Judie Rothermel herself!  Lindsay had no clue at this point and was just peppering her with questions.  Which she seemed more than happy to answer.  Then Judie started asking us about our quilting backgrounds.  We must have talked for 15 minutes.  She couldn't have been more lovely.   And I couldn't resist this gorgeous stack...

Moving on, I apprently couldn't resist this FQ bundle either...actually, I think it was from a booth of a vendor I know pretty well and I wanted to support her...

 And this stuff?  Oh my goodness. I don't even know how to describe how luscious this fabric is.  It's got a most wonderful sheen to it and it so incredibly soft.  It's by Northcott and called Cosmopolitan.  You've really got to see - and feel - this stuff to believe it.

 One of my missions at the show was to get fabrics to make four more of the striped purses like I made from Modern Mix.  The ladies in my family are getting them for Christmas.  I'm making two in neutrals...

And two in green/purples....

I'll start on these as soon as I get back from vacation.  Which we leaving on in the morning.  Better finish packing!!

So, that's the quilt show haul.  Good thing the next one is a year away!  o:)