Sunday 15 March 2015

Wedding Keepsake Quilt

Hello!

It's been a while, yet again. You'll have to excuse the inconsistency of posts up until now. At the end of February I finally finished my social work training, and I start my first job as a qualified worker tomorrow! Very exciting! I have had a blissful (if slightly boring!) two weeks off just pottering and getting those jobs done that I have been putting off for the last year! 
This week I finally got around to putting together my wedding keepsake quilt. We did this instead of a guest book that you sign, as we wanted to display the words of wisdom that our friends and family wrote down so that we could actually live by them!


At the wedding day itself, we set up a table with pre-cut 6" squares of material in a tin, and provided good old reliable Sharpie black pens and boards so that they were easy to write on. These were then collected at the end. Out of around 80 guests about 50 signed a square, and of there 4 were either inappropriate (!) or illegible.


I started off by arranging the squares into an order. With the missing ones, I used blank squares that I would like applique on to to make them look part of the quilt and less boring. It was lovely reading through them all again - it's been nearly a year since I had a good look and some of the messages were really heartfelt, and made me laugh out loud more than once!
Hermes was not a helpful companion, but he was indeed a cute one!
Once all were stitched together, I straightened up the edges and added a red boarder. This material came from two old pillowcases that someone gave me a little while back. There was more than enough material. I had my first attempted at mitered corners, which I admit I will need to practice again after this!

As this actually ended up being a wall hanging rather than a quilt, I decided from reading online tutorials and tips that it wasn't really necessary to add wadding between the top and the back sheet (cut from an old single duvet cover, again donated to me.) So I went ahead and pinned the two bits together and began sewing on the machine from the middle of the quilt outwards.

The binding was made from scrap fabric I had, and then I boarded the squares with black lace runner. Finally, using more of the pillow material, I made 5 loops from which to hang the finished quilt from a piece of pole.
And so to the finished article...


Notes for next time: It needs to be a little straighter, and it doesn't quite hang exactly right. But, I'm pleased with it, and pleased it took half the time without needing to add the wadding into it.
It has been hung in our bedroom so that it is the first thing we see when we come home and go to bed each night.

Hopefully now I'm not studying anymore, I will be able to post more often like before. Doing this has made me once again remember how much I love doing this stuff, so the more time I have to dabble the better.

Until next time, happy days everyone!

Button xx