Monday, February 18, 2013

PhxMQG Mug Rug Swap

Saturday was the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild’s February meeting, and we held a little mug rug swap. I love doing these little swaps, because I use it as an opportunity to learn and stretch my creativity and skill.
Of course, creativity didn’t strike until about 8pm the night before…and my idea was a little crazy and time consuming…
You that lovely lone starburst block that is so popular right now? I had the bright idea to scale it down to mug rug size! (I have a few in progress photos on instagram, but I have no idea how to get them to my blog. Help?!?)
Here’s my result:
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I love it sooo much!!! The inner white pieces finish at a mere 1/8” wide!!! The whole thing is 6 1/2” square
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Here’s a shot with a nickel for an idea of scale. Seriously tiny piecing going on. Now the problem is I will never be able to throw away even the tiniest scrap of fabric, because what if I NEED it some day??
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I backed it in this fun colorful Kumari Garden print. And I got to use one of my brand new tags!!! I found the awesomest Etsy shop ever. Cassie at GutenTags is seriously awesome, and I will definitely be back for more from her.
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And the back side of my new tags :)
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Ok, here’s where my story gets silly. We did a random swap for the guild mug rug swap, and I was the last to get one. And guess which mug rug was last to be distributed….Mine!! To save confusion, and because I really do love it, I kept my own mug rug…I felt so dumb taking my own back….but then again, I am really excited that it gets to live with me after the hours of teeny tiny piecing I put into it :)
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And here are some shots of all the lovely mug rug that got swapped on Saturday:
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(Mom’s is that cute itty bitty dresden plate next to mine :) ) We have some awesome talent in our guild!

PS- QUILT CON IS THIS WEEK!!! Getting super excited! If it is quiet around here, it is because I am frantically trying to get my house in order and ready for me to be gone for a few days! And packing...

Friday, February 8, 2013

A Custom Wedding Quilt

I finished this gorgeous custom wedding quilt earlier this week, and I couldn’t be happier with it!
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I met the mother of the bride at one if my craft fairs in December, and she asked if I could make a wedding guest quilt for her daughter’s wedding that was, as you can see, at the end of December.
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We decided having unfinished solid squares for guests to sign would be the best course, in case a young child got hold of a pen or something and went to town on it. Can you imagine that happening on a finished quilt? I would cry :)
After the wedding, she brought the squares back to me, and I came up with a quilt design, incorporating the signed squares.
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I didn’t want to quilt on top of any writing and risk obscuring it, so I quilted straight lines right outside the center squares.
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For the large monogram block, I outlined the S and the date with quilting lines, and then quilted along the chevrons in the background fabric.
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Here is a photo of the quilting of the center block on the back. It looked way cool :)
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At first, I was going to back the quilt with the large yellow tonal chevron, but when I went to get it, my LQS was OUT of it!! So sad. Sniff. But then I spied this Joel Dewberry large floral print from Heirloom, and I knew it was meant to be. The yellow was perfect, and I liked that it was cream instead of white, because it made it look softer. I used Kona Charcoal for the binding to frame the whole quilt well, and to pull a little more charcoal into the quilt, because that was the monogram fabric as well.
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Oh and one more thing about the back. Since this quilt was big enough to need to piece the backing, I matched the pattern in the fabric so that it would look continuous. I should do a tutorial on that some time, huh? I have a pretty simple way of making it match up just right. And really, it makes such a vast improvement, especially on a large scale print.
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I loved being able to make this quilt. It was a really fun experience creating something to help a young couple commemorate their special day.
I will soon be offering custom wedding quilts in my etsy shop, but I haven’t gotten a listing up quite yet.

Oh ps I finally just got Instagram!! I will probably be way better about posting pictures of projects there than here. I'm materialgirlkirsten :)