"1st Anniversary Dinner"- A Quilt Show Reject

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that last year I had a quilt accepted into the "What's for Dinner?" exhibit at the Houston International Quilt Festival.  It was so amazing to go to the show and see my quilt there that I decided to try to enter the same exhibit this year.

The description of this exhibit is:
"We’ll “set the table” for this Special Exhibit on the show floor with enlarged “place settings”, complete with a placemat/tablecloth, napkin, fork, knife, spoon, and a plate full of “what you are eating for dinner.” This could be your favorite dinner at home, in a restaurant, or what you have for Sunday dinner. We are excited about this theme and hope that it will show a variety of interpretations, fabric choices, and views into different cultures, rituals, and lifestyles. Think colorful, fun, outside the box, and visually appealing!"

This year I decided to create a "1st Anniversary Dinner" placemat.  It is a tradition to eat the top tier of your wedding cake on your first anniversary, so I designed the quilt around that.  I have a piece of (our delicious) wedding cake (which is 3-d) on the china that we received as wedding gifts.  I used the embroidery part of my machine to create two napkins that look like the cake napkins we had at our wedding and then I finished it off with 2 glasses of champagne and a picture of us cutting our wedding cake.  Our wedding colors were blue and yellow.

I am totally in love with this quilt, but unfortunately it was not accepted into the exhibit this year.  Instead, I have hung it on the wall in my sewing room in a place of honor, since it makes me so happy to look at the quilt.

I wanted to share pics of the process of making this quilt since I am always curious about other people's design process.

1. First, I quilted the background in a crosshatch pattern.  Then I appliqued on the napkin squares that I had already embroidered and added the napkin crinkle around the edges.

2. I added the plate and quilted the circle pattern around the edges to match my chine

3. I appliqued on the forks

4. I appliqued on the champagne glasses and quilted a bubble texture in the "champagne"

5. I added the picture- it was printed using my printer onto fabric paper, and then I made the picture frame for it

6.Finally, I sewed on the 3-day cake and added the binding.  Mmmm cake :)

Here is a detail shot so you can see some of the sewing and quilting details:

And the overall pic again:

I am so sad that this won't be seen in the quilt show but at least I don't have to wait a year to hang it on my wall!

T-Shirt Quilt

My sister-in-law used to play competitive tennis when she was in high school and college and she had amassed quite the collection of tennis tournament shirts.  I volunteered to make them into a t-shirt quilt, my only request was that I be given a year to finish it to work it in between all my other projects.  Luckily, I finished it in 8 months, well within my self-imposed deadline.

I have made 2 t-shirt quilts in the past, one for me and one for my husband, using our old college and high school t-shirts.  It is such a great way to get those shirts out of your drawers and made into something useful that you can enjoy using.  Plus, I love the way that t-shirt quilts are heavier than the usual quilts that I make, it makes them especially comfy in the colder months!

Here is the finished quilt:

 

I bound it and backed it with a gray crosshatch fabric.  I ended up using only t-shirts with a white background, and it is neat the way that they all blend into one another that way.  

I don't like t-shirt quilts that only use the one size t-shirt with the sashing between each shirt (though I realize that it is a lot easier to do them this way).  Instead, I use a basis of 3" for my shirts and cut all shirts either 3.5" square, 6.5" square, 9.5" square, 12.5" square, 15.5" square, or any rectangle made up of those numbers (ex 12.5" x 15.5", 6.5" x 9.5").  Then I lay them all out and fit them together like a giant jigsaw puzzle.  This method takes a little bit longer but it makes a one-of-a-kind quilt!

New Pattern- Wonky Stars!

I got my sewing machine back from the shop a couple weeks ago and I immediately started my next quilt!

The name of this quilt is "Wonky Star Metamorphosis" and I have the pattern listed for sale on Craftsy here.  But first, let me tell you all about it!  Here it is laid out in EQ6:

I wanted to make a design where there was a full Sawtooth Star in the middle of the quilt and then have it slowly morph out and lose points as you get closer to the outside of the quilt and eventually just fade into the background color.

Here it is in some different colorways:

And here are some pictures of the quilt in progress (I need to get better at taking pics of the quilt in progress!):

Once it was all assembled, I quilted it with a spiral (of course) from the center out to the sides.  I was brave and used purple thread instead of gray!

Here is the final quilt:

The final size is 42" square.  It makes a great modern baby quilt!

Now go and check out the pattern for this quilt on Craftsy!