Some really good friends of mine got married in November and Ang and I wanted to do something special for them. We decided to work on a quilt together, make something from one couple to another. But, what the hell kind of quilt would the two of us come up with together? I like modern, solids, bright, off-kilter things and Ang is much more traditional and folk arty in her tastes.
Ang had a great idea revolving around a tree of life idea with two birds representing the couple. Her various ideas and doodles led to our starting point below:
The drawing led to the appliqued tree on the right. I still can't believe the tree is one piece. It is hard enough for me to imagine cutting it out, let alone sewing it on. There could be a good tutorial in here about enlarging the 5x6" drawing on the left to a 30x30" panel. But, since I didn't really take notes at the time, let's just say it took a bit of trial and error with my printers enlarge/poster function. Eventually it worked and we ended up with a full size template for Ang to use.Okay, great, we've got the central part of this quilt figured out an in progress, what about the rest? Well, that was my part, and for all the doodles and ideas I came up with none were any good. (Well, that's a bit judgmental, none felt right for this.) Of course, Ang saves the day, or at least my butt. When walking the dog one day she notices a neighbor's front door has a nice Frank Lloyd Wright inspired window panel. She sends me over to check it out and see if I like the design too. I find the house and yes, that panel is cool, so I draw a picture of it real quick and head on home. Now we have our basic design elements. That window panel we saw inspired the top and bottom panels on our quilt.
If I had been smart, and had some extra time, I'd have written down a lot of notes during this project. There could have been half a dozen posts related to this quilt along the way. Working the way I do, "just diving in" like I've written before, we ran into numerous headaches and "learning experiences."
Overall, I think it worked out well.
Ang's Tree of Life design
(Hand applique, leaves and flowers wool felt)
Oh, and another thing! My daughter and I were in the wedding party for our friends' ceremony. Our daughter Madelynne was so excited to be in the ceremony and have a dress like the bridesmaids, Ang wanted to make something special for her as well. Ang knitted this really cute scarf/shawl to compliment her dress. It looked great and Madelynne never took it off the whole day.
(Here's my obligatory super cute kid picture. Look out maybe next month I'll post some pics of our super perfect meals too, hahaha...no.)
