bride and bridesmaid dress quilts

You may remember the tree quilts that I made last year. This was a project where a client had asked me to incorporate a bridesmaid dress into the quilt. The same client came back this year with another friend having twins. This time a boy and a girl AND she had the wedding dress in addition to the bridesmaid dress.

Challenge accepted!

You'll have to excuse the photos. We had a stretch of yucky weather and since I had to give these to the client before the baby shower, I had to make due.

First there is the baby girl quilt. She requested purple and grey. The binding and purple flower are from the bridesmaid dress. The white flower is the wedding dress.  And let me tell you - my palms were sweaty when I cut up the wedding dress!!

The purple was hard to photograph because it was so dark. Here's the best shot I got of it!

What I did was make a long tube of fabric and then used Vanessa Christenson's technique for a twisty flower. The tube of fabric was to eliminate raw edges. The client requested that the quilt be washable.

The pattern is Tres Flores by Quiltstory.

Here are the adorable fabrics on the back.

That little polka dot??  It's actually hearts!

And so on to the boy quilt. The client suggested a football quilt with the laces being the wedding dress. Once I figured out how to make that happen (interfacing and zigzagged edges on my seams) here is the final result.

I got the pattern here at Connecting Threads.

I went to my LQS (Byrne Sewing) in search of an interesting brown for this quilt and found what I think is the coolest fabric ever.  It's a Robert Kaufmann Fabric called Kona Dimensions.  The ovals on this fabric have a slight metallic to them and are amazing in person.  It's called a jacquard? I was not familiar with it but wound up buying more here in different colors.

I think the fabric really made this quilt interesting. It had the potential to be very boring flat brown. but this brought another dimension.

All the quilting was done my me on my domestic machine. Free motion stippling. I'm feeling much more comfortable with my free motion skills and I'm proud of how this turned out.

The client was really happy with these and I hope the mom was as well!!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Football quilt and Tres Flores

Pattern: Football quilt and Tres Flores

Fabrics: bridesmaid dress, wedding dress, kona dimensions, various purple and gray from LQS

Finished: 3/20/15