Heart's Garden

After I got bitten by the quilting bug lo these 4ish years ago now and came down with a severe case of quiltpox (quite incurable, yanno) my Dear Mamma asked me if I would like to make quilts for both my sister and me out of the scraps of materials she had saved from the clothes she made for us while we were growing up. Such a treat! I finished the one for my sister a while ago and started in on the one for me.
Here are some pix of the one for my sister:



















On mine, the front is appliqued hearts and to use up some of the material (the scraps fill one of those flip top plastic buckets and that's AFTER making the one for my sister!!) I am making a scrappy strip block...but as every quilter knows, even if you cut up the fabric into little pieces (mine are 9 x 2.5 inch strips), you can't get rid of it all!!! Scraps, when left touching in the scrap box, breed in the dark and there just seems to be more and More and MORE of them every time you look in the box!!!

For this backing I need 56 8.5 inch squares which get cut into two and sewn back together into 28 10.5 inch blocks....I have cut almost half of the squares and have not even made a significant dent in the stack of fabric...
Here's the setting of the front:

and the Bride Wore Sneakers...

It was a lovely wedding. The anti-rain dances, the good weather thoughts, my umbrella bags and everyone bringing an umbrella or raincoat warded off the downpour...at least where the wedding and reception were held! As we were leaving home and getting onto the freeway, a lovely rainbow appeared and the end of the rainbow was right over DS's house!

We had a few 'wardrobe malfunctions' - a button came off DS's tux - I sewed it back on, and the zipper on the Bride's dress refused to work...so they sewed her into the dress! Almost had a wedding malfunction - the minister forgot or was not told he had a wedding at 10am...so he was a few minutes late (actually a blessing in disguise! DD was running a few minutes late - she had the furthest to come and one of our ickiest freeways to navigate.) Backup plan would have had the organist, who is an ordained minister also, do the service but then we would not have had music! A couple of pairs of shoes got left behind - one of the bridesmaids and one of the flower girls (the shoes were in the same bag)...the bridesmaid's sister loaned her shoes and went barefoot (actually stocking foot!) and the flower girl went barefoot too...with her, you could not tell as she was wearing dark tights.

The Bride looked like a Renaissance Princess...but to be comfy, she wore white sneakers with sparkley silver trim!

I curled my hair and left the house without combing the curls...figured they would stay in better if I waited to comb them out at the church...when I got there, everyone said to LEAVE THEM ALONE as the curls looked pretty just as ringlets..so...that's how I went to the wedding! It did look better than the combed out job I had done for the rehearsal. They got droopier and droopier as the day went on...but I still have some curl and its more than 12 hours later! Medieval torture device did its job but by the end of the reception I was more than READY to ditch it - it got a little twisted and started poking!

I got a lot of people to sign squares - I have 21 of them - mostly couples or families. Only one of the children was interested in creating a square - the oldest of the flower girls - she did two - the first one she drew on the wrong side (it's such a cute drawing that I think I will trace it). On to making the wedding quilt!

Two sad things happened (that's life, I suppose) - the Bride's grandma had a minor stroke early in the morning and could not attend - I hope she is ok. I got to meet her at the rehearsal dinner and she is a lovely lady (blind, but knits up a storm - she had her knitting bag with her and was clicking away in the back of the church). And at the reception, my Auntie fell off the edge of the sunken living room and sprained not one ankle, but both of them(!)...one is less so than the other so she can kinda hobble, but my parents ended up leaving early to take her to the emergency room...sigh...

Here's some pictures:

Outside of the Church - you can see the clouds!

Inside the Church
The start of the wedding...That's DH and me leading off the procession.

The Unity candle ceremony.
The New Mr and Mrs!

Wedding Minus One!

Rehearsal went off without a hitch...The church is very cute! Dinner was delish...I wish my son didn't have to work - he missed most of it...

Here's the Groom's Cake...



I thought it was cute that the waitress put the candles in it...

Here is the basket with the wedding quilt squares ready for signing. I pressed one of my nephew's girlfriends into being the monitor of the basket (don't want the flower girls and ring bearer to get into the ink, being as its rather indelible by design!)



Today has been really busy getting last minute stuff ready...Dashed out to get my hair cut - the stylist put layers in the back and around my face which should make the curls look better. I tried curling it yesterday and though it had lots of body, the curls just fell out after an hour or so...The ends were frizzy too, so it needed a cut badly.

Had to Dryel the tuxedo...forgot that the last time DH wore it was for a film shoot and he and the actress were doing a swing dance and they fell on a concrete floor during one of the lifts...there was concrete dust on it and aggghhh - a little hole in the side near the stripe on the leg...out came the Bo-Nash for a quick repair job - unless you know to look there, you can't see it...but its probably time for a new tuxedo - at least a new pair of the pants!

Got a pack of plastic bags from the grocery store...just in case we have wet umbrellas (on the theory that if you are ready for it to rain, it won't!)...Keep up the anti-rain dances...it looks like they are helping! Its down to only 40% chance from 70%! Its pretty cloudy out there but its actually kinda pretty, so I hope tomorrow looks just like today. Thanks for all the good wishes!

Wedding Minus 2

Today is the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner...I am getting a wee bit freaked at how fast time seems to be flying by. Got the reservations in yesterday and ordered a "Grooms Cake" for desert - chocolate with raspberry mousse filling...

At last count, most of the participants are supposed to be there, bright and shiny, at 5 tonight. I still have a ton of stuff I need to get done - retry on the dress, make sure I have all the jewelry and makeup (have to BUY stuff as I don't have any on hand since I don't wear the stuff normally), do a manicure, figure out how to roll the hair, make sure DH's tux is all in one place and check to see if I have to Dryel it...

I did get the signature squares for the wedding quilt and the basket for them finished up yesterday. I took the advise of one of the ladies on the Delphi Quilting Forum - I cut the freezer paper larger than the muslin squares and folded the edges over so there is a frame around the blocks. That SHOULD keep them from having writing in the seam allowance! Have been looking at fabrics online for the rest of the quilt - its going to be a jewel-box pattern (I like it that the jewels look like a ring) - almost DDIL would love to have red and blue satin as the background and border fabrics...I really don't want to sew polyester satin into the quilt...I know there is a cotton satin, but nowhere that I have looked online has it...I am thinking now of getting some good quality cotton sateen sheets and dying them red and blue. If anyone has a lead on where to get cotton satin, let me know!

AND AGGGGHHH..The weather report for Saturday does NOT look good...At least a 70% chance of thunderstorms. I am wondering if I should even bother curling my hair...It won't make it past the front door if its raining...Sigh...May have to settle for the old standby ponytail! This is one time I really hope the weatherman is WRONG! I may end up wearing my silk pants liners under the dress if its going to be that cold! (its only supposed to get up to 68 degrees)

Oh...and a cool thing happened on Tuesday. I went to a party and one of the prizes was a box of scrapbooking stuff. It kept getting won by the guys who said 'Nah...don't want it'. Finally I piped up and said if no one wants it, they could give to me as my DS and almost DDIL are getting married this weekend and I could give it to them for their wedding album. So they did! And I will!

There's A Whole Bunch of Weirdness Going Round...

So...ya really wanna know my 5 weirdnesses?

1. I have never had my hair perm'ed or colored.
2. I have to have wool sox on at night during the winter. Can't sleep with cold feet or even cool feet - they gotta be warm.
3. I have to have my shoulders covered even in the summer. Makes for some odd looking arrangements of the sheet - top edge of sheet draped over shoulders, butt and legs hanging out...
4. I have 'purse-angst' - its gotta be draped over my knee with both my feet touching it when I am sitting down anywhere other than my house. This stems from a trip DH and I took probably over 20 years ago...we got onto the plane, he asked a question about who we were going to see first, I reached for my purse to pull out the itinerary and AGGGH - NO PURSE! I had left it on the xray conveyor belt...Fortunately, DH was able to persuade the stewardesses to let him off to go get it and they held up the plane for 5 minutes til he got back...I was a TOTAL NERVOUS WRECK!!!
5. I turn in circles when I sleep...left side, right side, tummy, left side, right side, tummy, etc...sometimes if the sheets are not tucked really tight, I get pleats in the bottom sheet. The only time I don't turn is if I have a cold and then I prop myself up so I stay on my back, but its not really comfortable...just keeps me from drowning...

I see Jane Ann hasn't done this yet...TAG!

QuiltPink

Yesterday, quilt shops across the US put on local events for the QuiltPink Day. My local shop invited us to create quilts out of blocks that had been created by customers over the last month or so. We arrived in the morning, set up our machines and went to it! Some of the ladies did squaring up, some did row sewing and some cut and sewed the borders. We had enough for 4 quilt tops and some extra blocks - there were some that came in too small which we turned into table runners - but we needed some extra blocks to finish off the 5th quilt...so some of us cut out more blocks and whipped them up. We got so into making more blocks we had enough for another whole top! Here are some pictures of the event:


We all got a QuiltPink bracelet (its really tough trying to photograph your own body!) She also gave us a card to hang in the shower to remind us to DO YOUR BREAST EXAMS!


This is the sewing area...that's my machine in the foreground. Next to me is my friend that celebrated her 1 year anniversary of her mastectomy the day before. My friends and I were there in honor of her.


More fabric! We made enough extra blocks for a 6th quilt top!


This was the lovely Chinese Chicken Salad that the shop provided for our lunch - YUM!! In the background are some tasty pink cookies.


This is the layout table. The blocks were all raw-edge stacked hearts made in the QuiltPink Moda fabric line.


Here's the first finished quilt top...isn't it cute? The shopowner is going to have them longarm quilted then all but one will be sent on to be auctioned off...the remaining one she is going to auction off at the shop....I will be stopping by to buy a ticket!

After the QuiltPink event...I went to the tailor shop in the same center to have the hem put up on my Mother of the Groom dress. The two ladies in the shop were so cute. One suggested a modification to the wearing of the dress that has me giggling - if you look at the picture of the back, there are two longish ruffles draping down from the back bodice. She showed me that if I pulled those ruffles up and to the front, they would make very cute 'sleeves'...I just have to find a couple of cute smallish golden pins or maybe one large pin (and fasten the other side with a hidden safety pin)...This makes the dress not look quite so bridesmaidsey...HURRAH! I pick it up next Friday on the way home from work.