"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!