"Radiant Blues" Police Officer Wedding Quilt

My cousin Chelsea is a police officer in Fort Worth, Texas. She got married on November 8th, so I got to head down to Texas and see my family for the first time in almost a year! I knew I wanted blue to be the main theme of the quilt, so when I found a Moda turnover full of rich blue, turquoise, and gray solids, I knew I had to use it! (A turnover is a layer cake cut in half on the diagonal.) I used two turnovers, so basically one whole layer cake.

The best part about taking the pictures for this quilt is that I gave my husband a break from being my quilt holder and had my brother-in-law do it instead. (Is it wrong of me to admit that I enjoyed seeing him suffer for the sake of my art?) Haha. :)

This is the face of suffering and frustration after I kept telling him, "Hold it up higher! I can still see your head, duck down! Now it's crooked, hold it up straight! Why are your arms shaking? This isn't that hard!" Poor Abe. :)

In his defense, it was really windy. This is me attempting to help.

This picture perfectly sums up our photo shoot and makes me laugh every time I look at it. Abe is looking at my sister (his wife) wondering when this is going to be over, I'm trying to get the quilt to lay flat and look nice for the pictures, and Wes (my husband) is just leaning against the wall, smirking, because this is normally what I put him through and now he gets to enjoy it from a distance.

Again, windy. I can't really complain about the weather though because the day of the wedding was 65 degrees and sunny. Perfect!

We took these pictures at the rehearsal luncheon, which was held at a retirement community. We spent a good deal of time in the courtyard taking pictures, and I can only imagine what the residents were thinking as they heard me calling out directions and laughing maniacally...

I found the backing fabric at JoAnn Fabrics, of all places. It matched the colors on the front perfectly!

I didn't realize until I was editing the pictures that this label is EXTRA crooked. Oh well. I love the binding though! I used the same gradient gray/black fabric that I used for my sister's Black and Gray X-Plus Quilt.

I was telling my sister to get a picture of one of the spots where the points matched perfectly. I used a glue basting method with these triangles and I think it really helped to keep the triangles from stretching out as I was sewing them.

Ta-da! 

My sister's photography skills (and camera) are much better than mine. Had to take advantage of it while we were together. :) 

I hope you enjoyed looking at this quilt as much as I enjoyed writing about it! I love the final product and how it just radiates light. I wish Chelsea and Jeffrey all the best and can't wait to head back to Texas to see everyone again! I'll leave you with a picture of my family (and yes, my dad is the king of the selfie stick) and my siblings!

Scrappy Gray Table Runner

My sister Mandi recently told me that she wanted a quilt with the colors gray, black, and white. I didn't have enough of those in my stash to make a whole quilt, so I asked around on Instagram for the best place to buy fabric scrap bags online. A generous Instagram friend offered to sell me some scraps from her stash, and I couldn't be happier with the variety and selection that she picked out! I decided to do my first "X Plus" quilt with these fabrics and so far, it's coming along nicely.

As I was trimming some of my pieces, I was ending up with lots of triangles. I couldn't let them go into my scrap bag when they were already so neat and tidy, so I sewed them together into half square triangles and decided to make a table runner for our dining room table. I pulled an awesome batik from my stash for the backing, and this was the final result!

Our house has a sun room with a GIANT skylight, so I was able to get some good lighting AND stay warm. My dog, Gracie, managed to tolerate this particular photo session long enough for me to get some good ones. :)