Sunday, September 30, 2012

Wedding Stuff - Burlap Runners

As I have mentioned, our daughter is getting married and we are now down to 3 weeks!!!  So lots of wedding projects are going on.  The wedding will be an outdoor ceremony (all good thoughts for great weather on Oct. 20 is appreciated), and the reception will be in a barn.  The barn is at a local orchard so we are hoping for a beautiful fall day with the trees all in beautiful shades of red and gold.  The trees have started to turn colors around here due to the recent cold snap.  We are really hoping for an Indian summer kind of a day with beautiful sunshine.

Anyway one of the projects we did last week was to make burlap runners that will go down the center of the tables.  We are doing rectangular tables that are set up boarding house style, so the runners are LONG.  We started with 10 yards of burlap which I cut into thirds lengthwise, and then started serging and serging...  it was time consuming but so rewarding.




 Yeah, I know - LOTS of burlap!  We then added a beautiful lace edging that we found at Joann Fabrics, in an off white color.



 
 
We used an acetate stencil my other daughter Alyssa custom made for Kelly with Kelly and Doug's initials, and stenciled with brown craft paint onto the burlap at each end of all the runners.  It was a bit fiddly getting everything lined up just right but once we had the process figured out we were on a roll.  And due to some starbucks and good music, we were up till 1:00 am working on these, we were determined to get them all done.
 
 
 
The runner with the stenciling complete.  We loved how the brown paint and stencil design looks with the bulap and lace.  Sorry about the hot pink drop cloth, it was the only plastic bag we could come up with to use under the burlap.  We found otherwise the paint would go through the loose weave of the burlap and get all over my table.
 


And this is what the runner looks like all completed.  Yes we had these layed out all over the studio to let them dry.  OK, one more project we can cross off Kelly's wedding to do list!

 
 
 
 

Friday, September 21, 2012

Keepsake Quilt



This is a picture of the antique bow tie quilt I got at an auction. We used it as a table cover at my daughter's wedding shower.   My daughter loved the vibrant colors and fun scrappiness of the antique quilt so we decided to make a keepsake quilt for her that is similar. 

 
 
We decided to do 4 patch blocks instead of the bow tie but used a lot of reproduction scraps to give the same feel with the colors and prints of the antique quilt.  I pieced all of the blocks and put freezer paper onto the back of the plain muslin squares.  I used a sharpie to put lines on the freezer paper to make it easier for people to write on the fabric squares.  Everyone at the shower added good wishes and their name to a pieced block.  We used the brown Pigma permanent pens which are for fabric
 
 
 
Here is the quilt blocks all layed out and ready to be put together. I pulled all of the freezer paper squares off before piecing the blocks together.   As you can see getting all of the prints arranged "randomly" and the signed blocks all facing the right way was kind of a project.
 
 
 
This is the quilt with the blocks all together and part of the gold borders on it.  I still needed to add the red borders.  The quilt now has all its borders and is layered and ready to quilt.  Just need to get some time to work on the quilting.  It's been a crazy busy week here with wedding stuff.  Hopefully I will have some finished pics of the quilt soon!