Wedding Guest Book Quilt - photo tutorial part one "Piecing".

Rather than having her guests sign a book, our beautiful niece/God daughter asked me to make a king size quilt.  They will wrap themselves up in our love and good wishes.  Chelsea picked her colours and bought most of the fabric.  She also used some precious vintage white linen dinner napkins from her late Grandma Erma.

The squares were cut 6.5" by 6.5" allowing for a 1/4 inch seam allowance to have 6 inch finished squares.  Each square was basted one inch away from the raw edge.  We used white thread on the wrong side and coloured thread on the right side.   The basting square frame a was a guide for guests to write in, leaving the seam allowance blank.  

Shortly after the wedding, the basting stitching was removed, then all the squares were pressed and trimmed to size.

I used Electric Quilt 7 software to design the layout.

Since there were not enough written squares for a king size quilt, I added embroidered squares and nine patches.

Even though I do not like ironing, quilting requires a ton of it and I do love to quilt.

The solid squares were laid out in a diagonal pattern.

The nine patches were deliberately placed randomly to add interest.

I started at the bottom, first row assembled, sewn and pressed.

 

The love messages are fantastic.

 

 

 

 

Signature patch with my initials and the year sewn in the bottom right hand corner.

 

 

 

All of the piecing was sewn with Ms. Remington, a lovely pink 1950s vintage machine.

Notice the guide directly right of the presser foot, it ensures a precise 1/4 inch seam.

 

 

The centre square is 12" by 12", one of Grandma Erma's dinner napkins.  All the embroidered patches were made with my Purple Princess (Pfaff Creative Performance) machine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The quilt back is this lovely chocolate brown 100% polyester velveteen blanket.

This quilt was finished at 11:30 pm October 9th.  Part two "Quilting" of the photo tutorial will follow tomorrow.  

Dear Readers,  Have you ever made a wedding guestbook quilt?

Tammy's Craft Emporium Update

Good morning, my craft emporium is my favourite place in the world. 

This is part of the overflow area, where the furniture does not fit in the sewing room resides.

All the cutting, piecing and ironing happens here.

 Ms. Remington - the pink lady who does all the piecing.

My wall unit that holds notions, the three bottom drawers have knitting supplies, zippers, hook and loop tape, elastic, snaps, fasteners, clips and more thread.

There is no short supply of ribbons and buttons in the craft emporium either.

Husqvarna Lily 555 the queen of my sewing machine family.

 Bernina 930 and White Superlock 2000 serger.

Laptop and 24 inch flat screen tv with built in dvd player.  I run my embroidery and electric quilt software on this Acer laptop with Windows 8 as the software is not Mac compatible.

Embroidery thread, about 500 spools of it.

Contents of the three drawers of the desk the laptop and tv sit on.

 Apparently, thread is in abundance.

Notice the telescopic light, it has a florescent circular light with a maginifying glass in the middle, ideal for reading needle sizes and picking out tiny stitches.

 The Purple Princess!  I love, love this machine.

The magic closet is huge - stuffed floor to ceiling with fabric.  Yet, there is more fabric stored in other areas of the house.

It is fantastic to have such a large supply of fabric on hand.

Currently, I am working on a king size wedding guest book quilt for our niece who got married on September 21, 2013.  Here is a sneak peak full posts will follow soon.

Dear Readers, I hope you enjoyed this picture tour of my sewing places and would love to see your sewing rooms.