Finished Jennifer's Wedding Dress Quilt

I love how this quilt turned out!  I blogged about the process here, but now I've completed it and sent it off to Jennifer, I wanted to post a couple of pictures of the finished quilt.

The satin, organza and organza ruffles went together so well, and the machine quilting in white with blue "scribbled circles" background is one of my favorites.  Jennifer had requested turquoise stitching to match her wedding colors.

I like taking a picture of my quilts draped over the chair, to give an idea of the size of the quilt, and how it looks in context.  Because so much of the quilt was ruffles, there wasn't a lot of material available, but the quilt is 45" x 45" which still looks really pretty.

I love making these quilts, and I think 2014 may be a busy year for me!  I have several Wedding Dress Quilts and a Wedding Dress Pillow on order now, and it's just January!  To see some of my other Wedding Dress Quilts, click on the Wedding/Special Occasion Quilts link at the top of the blog, or visit my Etsy store where I do custom orders.

Mary

Working on a Wedding Dress Quilt

Haven't posted in a while, I've been busy working on my latest Wedding Dress Quilt.  Here are a few in-progress shots.  The wedding dress had a pleated bodice, and lots of ruffles in the skirt.  The lining was satin.  It's a light ivory color. I was asked to use turquoise in the quilt, that was one of the wedding colors, so the inner border design and the circular stippling in the center are turquoise.

I de-constructed the dress, and designed the pattern for the quilt.  It has a center diamond, which will have a quilted motif, pleated corner squares, and an inner and outer border.  In between the borders will be several rows of ruffles.

Here's an in-progress shot showing the quilting in the center, start of the pleating, and the first border.  Most of the quilt is satin, the ruffles are organza, and I'll put organza over the pleated areas.

The border wasn't showing up well, so I decided to thread 2 threads through my machine (and it worked!) and sew over the border design again, it really shows up well now.  I sewed a feather design on the outer border, then sewed on the ruffles, and I'm in the process of binding it now.  

I'll post again when it's finished!

To see some of my other Wedding Dress Quilts, click on the Wedding/Special Occasion Quilts link at the top of the blog, or my Etsy store, where I do custom orders.

Mary

Do You Zentangle?

Do you Zentangle?  I just started doing this, and it's a lot of fun.  It's somewhere between doodling and drawing quilting designs.  A great way to practice quilting designs before you stitch them on fabric.

Here's one I drew:

There are lots of sites and pictures on the web about this technique...try it out and let me know what you think!

Mary

Green Whole Cloth Quilt - Color For a Change

Most of my Wedding Dress quilts are quilted in a whole cloth type design.  For a change, I decided to try a colored whole cloth wall hanging.  I used Dusty Jade Bella Solid fabric, and Connecting Threads Essential cotton and Essential Pro poly thread.  The "gold" color was thread painted with Taupe Esstential cotton thread. Auditioning the thread on the fabric was really helpful, I wouldn't have guessed that Taupe would look so gold.

I used the Mirror Technique again. I love this technique, I'm constantly drawing out new designs to see how they will look.

The hardest part for me is knowing when to stop...there's always more I could add.  But this is the finished wall hanging.

Here is a closer picture of the center and corner detail 

Really happy with how this wall hanging turned out.
Mary