Wedding Dress Made into Two Quilts for Bridget's Daughters

First quilts of 2020!  Bridget wanted her wedding dress made into two identical quilts for her daughters. Her dress had a very full skirt and a train, so there was plenty of fabric. 

Bridget 1

The outer border was quilted in a feather design. The lace that went around the bottom of her skirt was put into the inner border with a spiral quilting design in the open areas. 

Bridget 2

The center was a diamond feather design, with a free form feather wreath in the center.

Bridget Center

Wedding Dress Quilt for Erin

Erin's wedding dress had beautiful embroidery and beading on the chiffon skirt.  At the bottom of the skirt, there were two narrow satin borders. The underskirt was satin, which was used for the quilt top. 

In the center, I embroidered the bride and groom's names and wedding date inside a circle made from the beading that was around the neckline of the bodice.  The embroidery was placed in the corners of the center, and a fancy feather design was quilted in the open areas.

The inner border was a feather swirl design.  The narrow satin borders from the bottom of the skirt were put on the outer border, with a quilted design adapted from the embroidery between the borders.

Wedding Dress Quilt for Deb

Deb had a beautiful wedding dress with a ruffled skirt, lots of embellishments on the bodice, pearls draped across the back, and a large bow.  

The top of the quilt is the satin lining of her dress. I incorporated the lace and beading into the quilting design, and put two layers of ruffles on the outer border.  The bow fit perfectly at the bottom of the quilt. 

Deb asked me to add some teal color to the design, so I stitched the feathers on the inner border in teal thread. The finished quilt is 44" x 52".  I use wool batting, which quilts well and resists creasing. 

Wedding Dress Quilt Completed for Marissa

Finished another wedding dress quilt!

Marissa sent me a gorgeous dress, with a satin underskirt with lace covered netting, and lots of pearls and other glittery things.  Here is a picture of the dress (not the bride).

I deconstructed the dress and used the satin underskirt for the top of the quilt. Then I covered almost the entire quilt with the gorgeous lace from the quilt, sewing around all those edges!  I machine quilted designs in the blank areas.  

We decided to make a scalloped border on the quilt, I think it really finished off the quilt, a straight edge wouldn't have been as elegant! The finished quilt is 48" x 52".  

Here is the full quilt -- it really is square, the picture is deceptive :)

Mary

Custom White Rose Quilt for Jeanette

Finished this quilt for my client Jeanette, we're both really happy with the way it turned out. She asked for a white quilt, with their names and a saying in the center, machine quilted and some colored thread "background" and roses.  The quilt is queen sized, with a center panel and two borders, made in a white high thread count fabric.

Here is a closeup of the corner of the quilt. I quilted with  colored thread in dusty pink and sage green to tie the center in with the rest of the quilt.

And another picture showing more detail of the thread painted roses pattern, and the feather quilting. I blurred out the writing in the photos, it's very clear on the quilt :).

Mary

Bigger Green Whole Cloth Quilt!

At the end of last year, I finished (I thought) the Green Whole Cloth Quilt.  I blogged about the materials and design  here, I loved the color and design, but decided it just wasn't big enough.  Here is a picture of the original quilt.

Original Smaller Whole Cloth Quilt

So I carefully removed the binding, and added a 12" border, using the same fabrics, thread, etc.  Lots more heavy machine quilting, finished up the last stitching and binding last night!    I haven't finished blocking it yet, so there are a few places where it doesn't hang quite straight, but I couldn't wait to share it!!

Larger Green Whole Cloth Qult

The final quilt was 52" x 52" and I hung it in our bedroom, the green matches our "decor" perfectly!I'm so happy with this quilt now, and it looks beautiful hanging on the wall.

Here is a picture of the corner of the quilt, showing the detail.  I should have kept track of how many bobbins I used, so I'd know how much thread it in the quilt!

Sneak Peak -Wedding Dress Quilt

I can't show off this quilt until after my client gives it to her daughter, but I couldn't resist showing a sneak peak!

I'll post more at the end of March!

Mary

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

Wedding Dress Quilt Finished!

The Donna Miller Wedding Dress Quilt is finished. It was such fun to make, and I love the way it turned out.

After de-constructing the dress and designing the quilt, I drew out the quilting pattern for the large center panel, using the mirror technique I blogged about here.

Then I sewed the top without the outer ruffle, and loaded it on my frame.  I machine quilted the pattern in white, off-white, tan/gold, light pink, and dusty pink threads.  Lots of "scribbling" made the feathers really stand out.  After quilting, I attached the ruffle and binding (on the back).

These quilts are never the same, it's so interesting to see the dresses, and make this special quilt for the bride! These next pictures show more of the detail and quilting

Quilt Design with Mirrors - I'm Obsessed

Have you ever drawn quilting designs using a mirror?  I'm obsessed with this technique, especially for whole cloth quilts.

Design 1 Piece

I saw some videos by Sharon Schamber where she described the technique, once you get the concept, it's easy to do...

Grand Prize Winner of the 2013 Q&N Paint Chip Challenge -- Me!

My Purple Butterflies quilt won the Grand Prize in the 2013 Quilt & Needle Paint Chip Challenge!

Back in January, I joined the Q&N Paint Chip Challenge --- my paint chip color was a red-violet.  I decided to use the Tessellating Star pattern, and wrote up instructions in this post.  After I finished the patchwork, I appliqued LOTS of butterflies onto the quilt top, then machine quilted it using a combination of echoing, flowers, pebbles and other fill patterns in a diagonal direction.

When the quilt was completed, I posted it here and sent pictures in and I won the Grand Prize!  I won a $50 gift certificate from The Quilt & Needle.

This was officially my 100th quilt, so was special to me, even before I won!

Mary

Wedding Quilt Designed from Wedding Invitation

A lovely lady in Canada, Megan Seiler,  asked me to make a wedding quilt for her friends, using their wedding invitation design in the quilt.  This was a great design opportunity, and was a lot of fun!

Using the EQ5 software, I designed the quilt, then printed it out and got out the pencil!!  Lots of hearts and feathers, and the bride and groom's names and the wedding date.

After customer approval, I got started.  The central panel was painted with acrylic paints mixed with textile medium.  Then I thread painted over those areas.

The rest of the top was sewn together, loaded onto my frame, and I started quilting!  I used coordinating thread for each section.

Most of the quilting was some form of hearts and feathers, but the grey borders were done in a spiral fill, with some pebbles in the outer border.  I felt this changed up the design from just feathers, and made it a little more contemporary/modern..

Top 2/3 of quilt

The blue borders were a design similar to the motif in the center panel, and in the outer blue border, I painted and thread painted again.  

Bottom 2/3 of quilt

Did you notice that there are more borders than there were in my original design?  I realized as I started making the quilt that the center panel was too big, and I made it smaller and added a couple of borders.  I like it much better now, it seems more in proportion.  The finished quilt is 83 x 93 - queen sized. Because it was a large quilt, it was hard to get a good picture of the entire quilt hanging straight!  Here's one that was only cropped a little :)

Feel free to take a look at the wedding gift quilts and wedding dress quilts in the Custom/Wedding page of my web site  MaryMansonQuilts.com (if you need further information, there is a contact page on my web site, or leave a comment here).

Mary

Guess What This is!

I finished SUCH a fun wall hanging!  Can you tell what it is?

Here's a hint -- think pixelated!  Ok, so take a look at the next picture -- do you see it now?

Exuberant Spring

I love the word exuberant --and this quilt is just that!

Exuberant Spring

I used the leftover fabric from the quilt I made for my daughter last year, I love these bright colors.

The quilt started out as a disappearing nine patch, but I discovered (the hard way) that the small corner pieces weren't the right color.  Back to the drawing board - thank goodness for The Electric Quilt program!  Ended up with patches that worked as long as each vertical row was offset 1/2 block.

I also had to change the location of the small blocks depending on the direction the colored area was going -- for example,  if the colored area went to the right, then the small block was on the right side of the block.  Confused?  I sure was, but after some trial and error, the top looks great!

I tried to work in the yellow fabric, but it was just too "yellow".  Yellow can be a tough color.  So I took out the yellow blocks and replaced them with orange.

I'm debating whether to leave it like this, and have it lap quilt or wall hanging size, or put a border or some more rows to make it bigger.

What do you think?

Mary

Tessellating Star Instructions

Tessellating patterns are interlocking patterns that repeat.  There are a lot of different patterns, but I was really intrigued by the tessellating star, so thought I'd make one.

I wrote these instructions for myself for future quilts, but thought I'd share them.  This is my first attempt at instructions, so any feedback would be appreciated!

One of those quilts!

Some quilts are just trouble!

My uncle asked me to make a quilt to put at his mountain cabin. I thought I'd found a good pattern, Snowball blocks alternating with Nine Patches. I had lots of "woodsy" fabric in my stash.

When I put the blocks on my design wall, I didn't like it AT ALL!

So I cut the nine patches in half, and got rid of the snowball blocks. After trying several layouts, I still didn't like it :(

I ended up sewing the blocks back into nine patches, leaving out some fabrics and putting in more darks. It felt like I was going around in circles! 

Instead of the Snowballs, I used a different block (Puss in the Corner).  Finally, I got the blocks rearranged, and this time I'm happy with the result.

I sure hope the quilting goes better!

Mary

Easy to Make Design Wall

Here's a great idea for an easy and inexpensive Design Wall -- your fabric sticks to the flannel so you rarely need pins!

I made two - here is a picture of one of them.  They are side by side so I have a total of 8' x 8' of design space!  They can be rearranged or I can just use one if I want!

Simple Instructions:

Snow Quilts - This is Amazing!

Somehow I received an email about this guy, and I'm glad I did, the pictures are unbelievable! I looked Simon Beck up and he is legit - he really did these amazing snow quilts.

Artist Simon Beck must really love the cold weather! Along the frozen lakes of Savoie , France, he spends days plodding through the snow in raquettes (snowshoes), creating these sensational patterns of snow art. Working for 5-9 hours a day, each final piece is typically the size of three soccer fields! The geometric forms range in mathematical patterns and shapes that create stunning, sometimes 3D, designs when viewed from

higher levels. How long these magnificent geometric forms survive is completely dependent on the weather. Beck designs and redesigns the patterns as new snow falls, sometimes unable to finish a piece due to significant overnight accumulations.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Finished Blue Christmas Quilt

The Blue Christmas quilt is finished, and I wanted to show it off!  It was a UFO (UnFinished Object) I'd had for a long time, the blue and silver fabric was so pretty I didn't want to cut it until I had the perfect pattern.  The design I used is was 4-Patch blocks alternating with Diamond in a Square. I thought it made such an interesting pattern.

It's currently offered for sale at the Holmes Fine Gifts (Holmes Electric) store in Fayetteville, NC

Blue and silver is a nice change for Christmas!  I machine quilted with a meandering feather pattern that I really like in the center, and a feather border.  The outside border was a meandering loop, I didn't want to distract from the pretty fabric.

My early New Year's resolution is to finish more of these UFO's!

Mary