The autograph wedding quilt blocks are done.  Actually, they've been done for awhile but I was working on the presentation of the blocks and how to make it easy to manage signing the blocks at the wedding. 

Here's the stack of 110 blocks.  I had planned on making 100, then decided to make 10 more for a rectangular quilt.  The overall size will be a queen sized quilt, more or less, depending on how I finish up with the borders.  I suppose this stack is about 7" tall.  All of the blocks have a square of freezer paper ironed to the back of the cream center to make signing smoother.

Here's kind of a layout of the blocks for signing at the wedding.  There are two baskets, one for the blank blocks, and one for the finished, signed blocks.  This will keep them corralled and safe from getting lost in the chaos.  The frame in the background has the instructions for signing the blocks.  Patti is going to have someone supervise this whole process, but if no one were around, this explanation is simple enough to follow.

I went ahead and decorated all of the fabric pens with the hope that someone wouldn't accidentally put one of them in their pocket and walk off with it, thinking it was a regular pen.  I've glued and tacked the flowers to the pens.  I hope they will stay put.

 Here's the front of one of the baskets.  The baskets, the frame, and the mason jars holding the pens all have inspirational word rocks attached to them......"Love, Trust, Joy, Laugh, and Faith." 

Now I just need to get them in the mail so that Patti can have them ready for signing!



The wedding autograph blocks are humming along.  I've done 72 blocks so far and they are going together very quickly.  As you can see in the picture of four blocks above, I'm doing a simple 9-patch variation (I wanted the center of the block to be larger for more writing area) and alternating the two focal colors.  Half of the blocks will have green as the main color, half of the blocks will have brown as the main color.  By alternating the blocks, it makes a 2-color 4 patch where they are joined together in the center.

My eyes are a little crossed for today, so I'm calling it quits.  I'm hoping to have more time tomorrow for sewing and maybe (this is a big maybe) get all of the blocks completed.  We'll see!

A new project in the works.......

My sister Patti is getting married in October.  She and her fiance, David, already have about everything that they need, so gifting was a problem.  I decided to make them a wedding autograph quilt and asked Patti if she thought that would make a good gift.  She thought it was a great idea and I asked what colors she would like.  Green and brown.  I can go ahead and blog about this since it isn't a surprise.

Off to the quilt shop to buy fabric!  The fabrics above will make the entire top, which will consist of 100 blocks.  All batiks (and one Moda Marble) so that it won't be feminine.  Click on the photo for a closer look.  There will have to be some doubling up of signatures because I didn't want the quilt to be too huge.  (The last fabric on the left actually has a lot of green in it, although the picture only shows blue and brown from the way I folded it.)  From left to right...... the border fabric, the binding fabric, the center fabric which will be the autograph section, then the last two fabrics will make up the blocks along with the light colored center.  I didn't buy the backing yet, but with brown as the binding, I'll easily be able to find a nice green and brown backing fabric.

My block pattern is very simple so that I can get the blocks done fairly quickly.  I'll be able to rotary cut everything and chain sew the pieces. 

My plan is to get the blocks done as quickly as possible, iron freezer paper on the center autograph section to make signing  smoother, and mail the blocks to Patti.  They will not be sewn together into a top at this point to make signing them easier.  She could also mail some blocks out to people that won't be able to attend the wedding.  

My finished quilt gift will have to be belated, as I'll have to wait until the wedding is over and everyone has signed the blocks.  Then I'll sew them together......quilt them...... and give them their "official" gift.  Sounds easy enough......right?!  ;)  We'll see how it goes!