Dum-dum-da-dum

There is to be a wedding in June. Not mine, but my brother’s.

Bruddy and bruddy’s fiancee, you don’t read this blog, do you? Well, if you do, and if you don’t want to know about your wedding present, you may want to navigate away at this point.

Everyone else, here are the beginnings of the wedding quilt.

The pattern for these little trees came from here. I really can’t get enough of looking at these little wonders. Thank goodness for Lovely Design (who came up with these) and her constant flow of simply beautiful ideas.

A half-finished foundation-pieced sun block that I designed. Here it is with the arc that I appliqued on after this photo:

Oh, that tree fabric sets my heart a pitter-patter. I used that IKEA saucer to trace the circle. I’ve had this block in my head for a year and a half now, sketched out and ready to come into being. So ready that this morning when I decided to make it, the process just flowed. The sun came out from behind the clouds.

My mom is making the quilt with me–it will be our joint gift. And the pattern is our own. Basically an offbeat sampler with a nature/home and hearth/love theme. Three of the blocks are to be my mom’s already-finished batik Baltimore Album squares (gorgeous!), which I think will add a certain sophistication to all the young, fresh Amy Butler-esque prints we’re using.

Not all of the blocks will be pieced or appliqued. Some of them will just be panels of fabric, so we can let these large-scale prints do their thing. Here’s a rough sketch of the schematic (though the pencil lines are hard to see):

Truly, I am excited about this quilt. For one, it’s just a lot of fun prints and bright colors that put me in a good mood. For another, I’m not used to making quilts. That sun up there was my first experience paper-piecing. Changing up the (albeit wonderfully fulfilling) routine of garment construction is bringing new inspiration. I keep picturing some of these blocks I’m making on bags and pillows and who knows what else? This is, as I said, exciting.

And exclamation points would be running rampant throughout this post had the sewing not come to a stand-still this evening, mid-seam. Some sort of electronic malfunction with the sewing machine that hasn’t been solved by rebooting, rethreading, or a half hour of general fiddling. Sigh. Maybe a night unplugged will bring the machine back to proper life in the morning? That or a visit to the repair person.

This poor little house that I designed will just have to wait a little longer until it’s put together all the way.

In the meantime, we hope, we plan, we cut, we lay out, we baste.

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