speaking plainly

Speaking plainly: this quilt just about killed me. The pattern for the Plain Spoken quilt from The Modern Quilt Workshop is actually great (I'm just instructions impaired). I found the quilt on Flickr originally and lived the graphic nature and tone on tone quality of my inspiration picture. When I showed the photo to a long time friend and asked if she would want one as het wedding present she was ecstatic and I had no idea what I was getting into.

To start with I had to borrow the book from the library to get the pattern an was on a waitlist for more than a month to get it. Then I made the mistake of waiting until the morning of said friends wedding to go and actually buy some fabric for it. (In the end I didn't even use what I bought for the backing!) And then the project sat and sat and sat and sat. I puzzled over where to get my solids as they aren't necessarily readily available (or at a decent price) in Calagary. Should I order some kona solids online? Should I go to my most hated store and sort through their disorganized and frustrating piles? In the end I did the latter. I took my extremely stylish brother to Fabricland and had him build a beautiful earthy palette for me. Problem solved. And at only $8.00/m!

And then the project sat and sat and sat and sat (again)! This time for no reason at all. Finally, when I couldn't avoid it anymore, I started cutting. Buy only after my dear (extremely smart) husband suggested I cut enough for two and give the second one to another set of friends for their wedding. There was a little voice inside me screaming that it was wrong to give the same quilt to two different people buy I went ahead with it anyway. I cut all the pieces I needed for the two quilts and got to work painstakingly piecing all the little bits together.



I learned a few lessons during this quilt. The obvious one being that I should stop procrastinating! Other than that I learned a few lessons about accuracy in piecing. I quilted with straight lines on either side of all the seams which is a new thing for me and I liked it.

The quilt is backed in a brown print from a collection called "Bubbles and Blooms" and bound in the same.



Finally, I added a hand embroidered dedication patch for the beautiful couple.



And because I can, here is a shameless plug of my friend Brooks Reynolds who is a fabulous wedding photographer from my home town. He not only took the couples wedding photos, but he took mine too. Make sure to check him out!