Wedding Quilt Becomes a Reality!

I am thrilled to say that I have completed the quilt top for my son and his soon-to-be bride! And just in time to meet my August goal for One Monthly Goal.

What is it about making a king sized quilt that makes it seem like it just drags on and on forever? Oh, yeah. They are HUGE! And every step just takes that much longer.

But the result will be well worth it. The newlyweds chose this pattern almost two years ago. And instead of making it up right away, I stuffed it away in a plastic bin because I had a fear of curved piecing. How ridiculous! I had purchased the fabric, but just kept it in hiding.

However, once I overcame my fears, by taking a Craftsy class on curved piecing, I was good to proceed.

And if you read my last post, I miscalculated on the number of blocks as I increased the pattern from a throw quilt to a king quilt. Doh! Fortunately I had purchased extra fabric of all colors, and I simply made 10 more blocks. And then ordered additional fabric for the borders. I actually added 11" on each side to make the quilt come to 108 x 108 inches square. Whew!

The fun part was laying out the blocks. They were designed to go together in random fashion, so that is exactly what I did.  After I laid them out the first time, I snapped a photo and turned it into grayscale so I could 'see' better where any visual imbalances might reside.

Here's my first grayscale.  I ended switching some blocks around and came up with this second grayscale photo.

I actually played around with moving several more blocks here and there. But once I started to do that, then another area would become unbalanced. Finally, I decided it looked just fine and gathered them up to sew together for the final quilt top.

For those of you who whose brains are strongly geared toward symmetry, pattern and reason, this quilt is not for you! My husband, who is an engineer, goes crazy when he looks at it. He can see no pattern in it. Nothing matches up. It makes no sense to him. I think that is exactly why I like it so much - it's a jumble of color and movement, and your eye travels around to see what comes next!

This is a quilt which challenged me to go outside of my comfort zone of color. First of all, I have never made a quilt entirely out of solids before. But playing with nine different colors proved to be fun! That chartreuse green shocked my senses each time I cut one out and then again every time I sewed it into a block. And the yellow was so bold! But when it all came together, and once I added a 4-inch inner border and a 7-inch outer border in complimentary colors, I really liked it! In fact, I love it!

The pattern I used is called Cacophony by Tina Lewis from the Winter 2016 edition of Modern Patchwork.  I have three weeks to get this quilted and bound before we head to Portland for the wedding. I need to decide if I should custom quilt it with a lot of straight lines and a few curves, or just doe and edge-to-edge on it?  September 22 is my target date, so I wouldn't have to mail this monster. We can present it to them ourselves!

I certainly hope they like the finished product.  I'll post more shots after I get it quilted and bound. Which, by the way, will be my September OMG Goal!

And one more thing:  I must say that making a quilt for such a special occasion has been a very heartwarming, personal adventure. Next I want to make one for my daughter and son-in-law!

Quilting with a smile,
Barb

Linking up with:
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The Saga of The Wedding Quilt

This is a hallelujah post! (Correction: At least it started out that way.....)

I went from this:

To this:

This represents 36 straight lined blocks and 36 curve-pieced blocks. Double curves at that! And the blocks are now complete.

Whew!

This is the the wedding quilt for our son and our soon-to-be daughter-in-law. I wanted to make it and get it finished so I can take it to them when we drive to Portland in September for the wedding. I think now that I just might make it my deadline - whoohoo!!!

The quilt pattern is called Cacophony from a back issue of QuiltingDaily.Com. They picked it out almost two years ago! I bought the fabric right away, but I had put off beginning the project because of the curved piecing. And the fact that I wanted to turn this into a king-sized quilt. LOTS of curved piecing, and something I had never done before. The blocks are 9", so I guess I'd better do the math to make sure I have enough. It's always something, isn't it?

Wait a minute. Hold my horses!

I don't have enough fabric/blocks for a king-sized quilt. Doh!

I doubled the number of blocks in the pattern thinking that would be enough. But the pattern makes a 45x63 quilt, so doubling it only gives me 90x63. Or 81x81 by building two more blocks. Far from a standard king size of 92x100. Double doh!!

Ah, well. Their king-sized quilt just turned into a Twin. Or a super cozy, huge lap quilt built for two to snuggle beneath.

Oh, geez.  Yep, that will have to do on this project. I just don't have it in me to make another 45 blocks. And it won't look good with sashing. Maybe a large border???  Maybe two borders???  Well, it is what it is. Because I know they'll love it any old way!

Quilting with a smile,
Barb

Linking up with:
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A Work In Progress, A Fire, and A Winner!

I've gotten sidetracked this week. As is the case in all the Western States, July and August seem to have become synonymous with wildfires. Sunday, a wildfire in mountainous pines and brush was started by some people shooting exploding targets. What the ??? Have you ever seen a video of exploding targets? It's like shooting off fireworks, with sparks flying in every direction!

Within 48 hours, the ensuing fire has engulfed more than 35,000 acres of timber and grazing lands for both cattle, sheep and wildlife, caused evacuations, threatened homes, destroyed wildlife habitat and will tarnish the watershed. It started just three miles from our home.

The Sharps Fire, 3 hours after it began on July 29, 2018

Wildfires started by lightening are one thing. Fires started from stupidity are quite another. We watch with immense sadness as the people of Redding, CA., are dealing with the severe aftermath of their fire storms, and I can't even imagine the anguish of finding everything you've owned in ashes.

This photo above was taken the morning after The Sharps Fire began. The photo doesn't do it justice, but it had an extremely eerie beauty about it.

A National Incident One Command Team has finally arrived to take control of this fire as it skirts the hills close to the four communities in our valley.  We, personally, are safe now as the winds have taken the fire in other directions.  Last year at this same time, in this same draw, another big fire was started by people shooting steel jacketed bullets (which cause sparks). I just shake my head.

Anyway, I'm off my soapbox now. I didn't get much sewing/quilting done as we watched the progress of the fire.  But I did get a start on the blocks for the king-sized wedding quilt for our son and our soon-to-be daughter-in-law.  By the time I get finished with this quilt, I am going to be an expert at curved piecing, that's for darn certain!  Getting this quilt top completely pieced by the end of August is my One Monthly Goal!

Let me finish this post with the best news of all!  As a grand finale to my participation in the Christmas In July Blog Hop, sponsored by Carol, from Just Let Me Quilt, I have used the random number generator to select my winner. Drum roll, please.  Congratulations to Janarama! I have emailed her and will be sending her an assortment of Christmas fabrics to play with for the coming season. Fun, fun!

Quilting with a smile,
Barb

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