Here Come's the Bride!

 Thank you everyone who has sent well wishes for the Newly Weds~

The "First Look" moment.

For anyone who has not heard; Hanna wore My Wedding Dress.  The sleeves were altered but otherwise the same as in 1987.   It was so special for us.  Here is a back view captured during their first dance.

Here is how the weekend started.   Finishing the welcome bags for hotel guests.

David's parents hosting a wonderful dinner at Hanna and David's favorite neighboorhood Italian restaurant.

It got a little wild with spontaneous dancing, and singing and included an all girl conga line! 

The Bridal Suite was decorated.

Getting ready - whew finished those buttons!

Reminds me of Cinderella.

My handsome boys!   It has stopped raining long enough to get outdoor photos.

Time to line up!

Hooray!  The quilt had a great location!

Hanna's favorite stuffed dog, Toby, was the ring bearer with the help of Matthew and flower girl and sister, Vivian.

The event took place at The Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA.

Hooray! They're hitched.

Everything was beautiful

the party was very festive with lots of dancing and fun having! 

My besties in a little before and after photo.

Still crazy after all these years......almost 50 year friendship.

Oh what a night!

Happily Ever After....

Early photos from the photographer - very happy parents!

Centerpiece that I brought home.  It lasted a whole week.

Well, that's all folks!

Quilting and other earthly pursuits will resume very soon.

xo

Double Wedding Ring Finale!

Wedding Quilt Ready for next Saturday's Big Day!

I think this was the first post I did.  I started this quilt in August of 2021. 

Using Tara Faughnan's pattern.  It is a freezer  paper piecing pattern where you sew and flip and re-use the paper.

I pre-cut the squares in  many different solid colors.  Solids were the happy couples choice, which was fun and challenging!

I set up a table and layed out lots of piles.

I lined them up and layed them out for sewing.  There was A LOT of sewing!

Here are some early arcs up on the design board.  It took a while for it to come together.

If you can believe it,  I made templates and hand traced and hand cut all the background pieces.  Yikes.  No wonder this took so long!

For  the background I used black, brown, purple, dark blue, and dark green.   You can see here that I do try to conserve fabric.

On to the curved and there was A LOT of curved piecing!

All I say about all that curved piecing is that practise makes perfect or (good enough).

Pins, pins, pins.....

Woo Hoo - It is coming together - yay!

sewing, pressing, sewing, pressing......and anon......

After all that - I made a  mistake in the middle and put a block in wrong.  Woe is me.

The backing I picked out is a beautiful floral print with a back background.  A Fruitful Life is the name of print.  How Perfect!

pinning day - hooray!

So... How to quilt?   I decided to machine quilt all the blocks and each arc.  you can see it better on back.

I also used perle cotton to do big stitch hand quilting.  Again, how to mark it? 

 I like to use motifs and lines that already exist in the quilt design.  Here is what I settled on.

Mirroring the curve of the piecing, then marking a diamond.

Here is the edge design.  Wow - check out that cat hair!

Hey Nutmeg, you're not helping.

Each arc had a matching or contrasting color

I really enjoyed doing the big stitch...Friday Cosmopolitan notwithstanding.

And finally it was bath time!  I did a multi-part post on Instagram on my process for  this.

The quilt released a lot of color but it all ended fine!

And finally it is ready!   Here it is today for  its dress rehearsal.

I'm so happy for  my daughter, who has had a wonderful bridal season. 

the invitations she selected are perfect fo ra botanical wedding.

It has been a very exciting time in our lives.

If you want to see some photos of the happy couple, here is their website.

The next post will be some wedding photos.  Then it will be back to quilting!

xo

barb