blue, white & gold argyle wedding quilt

it is hard to believe this moment has come and gone.
i just posted day 1 from my sister's wedding on my photography site yesterday, and now here we are officially blogging the quilt.
which post is more important?  well, i'll leave that up to you to decide.
i'm sure you're all going "wait!  didn't you just make your super duper lucky sister her own giant quilt for christmas?"  yes.  yes i did.  but that was supposed to be for her, and this one is for them.  so now i never ever have to make her another giant quilt.  and it will be 10 years before i have to make her a baby quilt...  or at least 5.  that's my plan for their life anyways.  SO.  back to the process of this quilt.  i had started planning this quilt prior to even finishing the science one, since i had to essentially begin it asap!  my sister was/is an argyle fiend so finding one that wasn't too blah was a challenge.  i found a super cool purpley one that had a stain glass look to it, but there was no pattern to be found.  and at this rate, no emily has time to make a pattern.  not in the midst of sewing one thing and cross stitching another.  lisa found a pattern for me, which oddly enough is by a local designer in town!  i was afraid it wouldn't be big enough, so the designer shelley of cora's quilts told me how to make it large enough for the potentially queen sized bed they'd be having.
we went to idaho in november to do all the mega wedding shopping stuff with the bride and at one point of course ended up in a joann's with aileen (i mean... duh?)  no matter how much i poked and prodded to get a color idea out of her, i couldn't get much of anything as a color sample out of her (at the time, she was looking at stormy blue for us bridesmaids).  we came home, and i immediately hit up our own local joann's and went with a navy blue, gold and ivory color scheme.  and then she went and changed our dress color to dirty purple**.  whatever, aileen.
these blocks went together wonderfully, as well as the quilt as a whole.  i am quite pleased with the final result, because it is very much argyle and very aileen & ben really.  the pattern was great to follow, with my own math calculations being the issue when it came to buying fabric.  anyways, here are the photos!
here's a little closer look to see some of the prints.
 i was afraid i would hate those blue prints touching, and all the floral was a little overwhelming.  i think the solids breaking up the lines really helped make it work.
i also promise i trimmed those stray strings as well!
for the quilting i followed the gold "squares" and went around each side of it and then around the border. i didn't want to quilt over the argyle in the case that it might detract from the actual pattern of the quilt. i started off with navy blue thread, but then quickly (after a fit of rage) switched to off white to better hide in case the "ditches" i stitched in didn't stay too well.
as any good big sister/bridesmaid/photographer would do, i made the two of them open their gift at the family reception on friday night after all the festivities.  doug was there helping me out throughout the day, so he was able to get some of the photos as the opening of the beast happened :)
and there you have it!
now that all my blogging is caught up, i suppose it is time to get back to sewing.
happy wednesday, y'all
**i should clarify, i do like the color of the dress.  i just can't come up with a better way to describe it than the aforementioned "dirty purple"

disney mini quilt swap 2016 - peter pan

these past few months, i participated in my second ever instagram swap, and this was the one i had been waiting forever for!  i missed out on the first round of the disney mini quilt swap, and waited anxiously for a second round to be posted.  i spent forever dreaming of the up! quilt that was created, yearning for a chance to get my disney crafting on and then it finally happened.  i was signed up, and then assigned my partner and then it was time to get brainstorming.  she listed up and peter pan as her favorites, particularly for her baby's nursery.  i figured if i took the easy way out and made the house quilt i had been pining over, i just couldn't be able to give it away.  instead, i challenged myself and took on a peter pan themed idea and after i finally had my vision came up with a design of my own.  i went for the clock scene where peter flies off to neverland, sans darling children since i didn't want to overwhelm the mini quilt.  i took it to alaska with me, and did nothing.  it sat around for days, and nothing.  finally, inspiration hit and i was able to power through this mini quilt in the final hours before send out, and i couldn't imagine it looking any other way.  first off, here are the extras i made to go with it :)
lisa was in town for a little while in march, and she helped me power through this sew together bag. it totally helped having someone who had made one before walk me through getting it pieced together to know what the heck i was doing.  i also screen printed a onsie for the little baby to be.  my partner and her husband were not finding out the gender of the baby, so the up house was a perfect "neutral" tie in.  the sew together bag was made from colors she listed as her favorites, which i happened to find in the sprinkle line of cotton + steel.  i pretty much wanted to keep it for myself!
on to the mini quilt!
it clearly has a little bit of everything going on.
the clock face portion is paper pieced, while the body going down was a few pieces i just sewed together to give it some shape other than being a big square.  i added the sky to the side, and then got to cross stitching the numbers on the clock face.  the face of the clock was smaller than the cross stitch pattern i had found, so it took some creative measuring to get the numbers in a spot that made sense.  i created the clock hands on my own to figure out what time to make it so it somewhat matched the scene in the movie.  lastly, peter was appliqued on with some coordinating gold fabric left over from the quilt i made my sister for her wedding (to be blogged soon!) since a dark shadow wouldn't show up too well for the sky and the typical peter pan green just didn't blend well.  overall, i am very pleased with how this ended up!
and there you have it!
i don't know how many instagram swaps i'll be doing anytime soon, but if disney round 3 pops up, i'm sure i'll be in!

take me out to the ball game - baby b's baby quilt

last month i was invited to a baby shower for a dear friend and fellow bridesmaid for melissa's wedding (and also one of my past brides that i photographed!) who is having her first baby this month.  sadly, i was unable to attend, due to my sister's wedding reception i suppose it was a valid reason to miss out on the baby themed fun!  i still wanted to make natalie and her little one on the way something special, and since the shower had a baseball theme to it i went with their favorite sports team.  natalie & marshall are big oakland a's fans, so it only felt fitting to use a's fabric for the quilt.  after a little pinterest search, i went with a simple but fun stripe pattern to tie in the coordinating colors and prints. i almost went for a solid print for the back, but a helpful joann's employee pointed out this fun baseball themed print. i also made a carseat canopy using this same print, with brown minky on the back :)
baby b should be making his appearance this month, and i cannot wait to see his little face!
congratulations again, natalie!