The "Guest Book" Revealed!

Well, since I wrote about the “dilemma” the other day (read - "a few weeks ago") with the signing spots on the “guest book” I wanted to go ahead and share some pics of my work on the actual quilt.

I bought several (five, I think) different patterned fabrics along with a solid black to make up the arcs of the rings. I had envisioned just using the colors black and cream to go along with my color scheme, but fell in LOVE with a fabric that I saw on sale at Hancock Fabrics. It was a cream background, and had black on it, but also included the color grey.

Bringing in one more color really opened up my mind a bit and I ended up with another grey and black material as well. I wasn’t sure how exactly it would all look together, and I KNOW that we’ve had THAT talk before! So I was REALLY anxious to finish cutting up the million zillion thousand pieces that it took to make all the arcs that I think that I’ll need and get to sewing some things together and seeing how the fabric looked.

Here’s the result: That’s just one side of the ring.

Here’s one more shot of the “ring”:
I apologize that it’s such a rough draft, but you get the picture. Just use your imagination and picture the cream muslin inserted to fill in the circles, and the arcs will all be finished off with squares cut out of the same black solid fabric that is the center piece of each arc.

What do you think? I REALLY like them! I can’t wait to see it more together, since it’s still a little hard for me to envision at this point. I know, I know. Imagine how frustrating it is for ME! Anyway, the plan of attack is for me to make as many of these arcs as I can BEFORE the actual wedding occurs…thus increasing the likelihood and ease of getting this project finished AFTER the wedding.

I was a little concerned about this type of quilting. The pattern is a piece-work foundation paper quilt pattern, which is something that I’ve never really done before. Essentially, you copy the pattern that’s given onto special foundation paper and then sew your quilt pieces to the actual paper, which at the same time sews them together. At the end of the project, you simply rip the paper out (in theory that happens easily since sewing the paper perforates it as you go). This gives you a firm foundation to work with and it would seem to me that it would help decrease the chance of error and help make all of your arcs exactly the same. Or at least closer to exactly the same than if you didn’t have it. So anyway, this is a new thing for me, so I wasn’t sure that I was going to like it, but I LOVE it!

It was really easy to pick up the hang of it, after the first one – since you KNOW that one took a little longer to get the hang of it! All in all, I finished the other three arcs in no time flat. I would say less than 10 minutes per arc, but I’m just guessing. So hopefully, by starting early my grand master plan will work out and help me to finish this up after we collect all the signatures.

Did you have a wedding project that you started ahead of time like that, even knowing that you couldn’t finish it until AFTER the wedding was over? How did working on it early work out for you? I’d love to hear about it!