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?