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:

I love it sooo much!!! The inner white pieces finish at a mere 1/8” wide!!! The whole thing is 6 1/2” square

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??

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.

And the back side of my new tags :)

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 :)

And here are some shots of all the lovely mug rug that got swapped on Saturday:

(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...

A Custom Wedding Quilt

I finished this gorgeous custom wedding quilt earlier this week, and I couldn’t be happier with it!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here is a photo of the quilting of the center block on the back. It looked way cool :)

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.

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.

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 :)