Anita's Wedding Quilt

So Anita got married . . . back in February.  But here's the deal.  Anita is from Taiwan and her husband is from St. Louis, so what they did was get married at the courthouse in February, they had a traditional Taiwanese wedding over in Taiwan in March (the pictures are amazing and crazy), then they had a reception in St. Louis in April for their stateside friends.  So in the spirit of making her wedding festivities last as long as possible, I've taken until just now to finish their wedding quilt.
         

The quilt I chose to do was a chevron design.  I got the pattern from a website that popped up for me a number of times,  including on Jenny's blog; she made this quilt a few years ago for a friend.  I did something a little more modern, both color and pattern-wise because I felt that Anita and Trevor (who is a tattoo artist) might not be sooo into the flowery pastel-y fabrics I've used for past wedding quilts.  I hope I'm right!  The fabric, instead, is a few different Marimekko fabrics, which I scored on sale for like $3 a yard at Crate and Barrel Outlet.  I supplemented with some solid colors from JoAnn Fabrics.

fragile glass and hard alcohol mixed well at the wedding reception

            The wedding reception, by the way was a great affair (on April 14).  It was held at the 3rd Degree Glass Factory in St. Louis, and all us guests got to ogle beautiful, one-of-a-kind glass pieces while we got all cocktailed up, and then I bought myself a vase, so there goes the money I saved by making them their wedding gift (although, I think most people will agree with me that making a quilt isn't necessarily cheaper, especially not if your time is precious!)
           Anyway, the quilt's in the mail.  I hope Anita and Trevor will like it!

Anaïs's Quilt and Wedding

            About a month ago, I started cutting up fabric for a quilt I was making for my friend Anaïs's wedding.  The one other quilt I've made for a wedding (last July) I finished more than 3 months in advance.  Since I was only starting the quilt with about a month to go until the wedding, this was very last minute for me.

            Luckily, the blocks did come together rather quickly once I started the sewing.  Nate's family was in town last weekend and Nate's mom helped me baste the quilt and mark the lines for quilting.  I had some fun with the binding; when I was at JoAnn Fabrics last week, I found the Bias Tape Maker machine I had been eyeing on sale!  So that should help with a lot of quilts to come :-)

             The fabric I used was a jelly roll of Amy Butler Love fabrics.  I like the different colors in this Amy Butler collection, and I also like that some of the patterns come in flannels as well as cotton, so I made the backing a warm cuddly flannel.  The front of the quilt was a Daisy Chain pattern which I got out of a book of Jelly Roll Quilt patterns by Pam and Nicky Lintott.  This is my first Jelly Roll quilt, but I had some fun doing it, so I definitely will try more of the patterns.  The main color of the quilt, yellow, was a fabric I found at JoAnn to supplement the jelly roll.

          With about 24 hours to spare, I finally finished binding the quilt and threw it into the washing machine.  Friday evening was spent box the quilt, wrapping it up, and finding the perfect card (a repro of an old postcard) to go with the gift.  

            It wasn't planned, since I didn't know which wrapping I would use, but the wrap job ended up matching my wedding outfit perfectly!

            The wedding was a very nice affair, just outside of Chicago in Elmwood Park.  We had a whole table full of Colgate people, many whom I "knew" from Colgate, but had never gotten to talk to before yesterday.  Many Congratulations and Best Wishes to Brian and Anaïs!

Trip to Philly and another wedding!

Last weekend Nate and I headed to Pennsylvania for our friend Emily's wedding. We decided to make a mini-vacation out of it and went a few days early to spend some time in Philadelphia. I got a great deal on Priceline for a room at the downtown Marriot which basically on top of the Reading Terminal Market.
I had checked the Man vs. Food website to see where we should try to eat while in Philly and found a few spots at the Reading Terminal Market that we just had to try right away - Dinic's for some Roast Pork sandwiches and Miller's Twist for pretzels and ice cream (I combined and got my ice cream in a pretzel cone!).

After having our fill, we walk to the nearby Fabric Workshop and Museum, where we saw the coolest felt cave made by Marie Watt. It had stalactites and stalagmites - much more advanced than the felting I've started. Hopefully I'll make it out west next summer and I can check out more of her stuff.

On Friday, after having some crepes for breakfast at Profi in the RTM, we headed east for the historical portion of our visit, spending time at the Franklin courtyard, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Then we went to the Franklin Fountain for lunch (which was ice cream, but hey we were on vacation). Another Man vs. Food suggestion, and another successful meal! Lest you think that all of our food choices came from television shows, we did pick a restaurant for dinner Thursday from the hotel guidebook - Nate chose Time because the guidebook said it had a large selection of whiskey - but the food was absolutely amazing.

Nate also picked our museum for Friday afternoon - the Mütter Museum of medical oddities. It was actually quite interesting - as long as you don't mind seeing lots of bodies and things in jars. For dinner on Friday we met up with my high school friend, Ly, for sushi at a nice restaurant by her new condo, on the south side of the city.

On Saturday we drove up to Quakertown, PA for the wedding. I didn't know many of the people there - Emily is Nate's friend from high school, though she did live out here in Chicago for a few years with her (now) husband, so I did get to know her some. The wedding reception was at an adorable country club - lots of food, drink, and dancing, as well as a few guests who were showing their team spirit by wearing a Phillies shirt to the wedding.

On Sunday, with some extra time to kill before our flight, Nate and I drove around Bucks County a little and ended up in Doylestown, the home of Henry Mercer, tile tycoon. We were able to tour the Moravian Tile Works as well as Fonthill, Mercer's tile covered concrete castle. Lunch in downtown Doylestown was at Paganini, a very cute Italian restaurant. It gave us enough sustenance to stand the drive back to the airport, which we really needed because we got kind of lost and it basically took twice as long as it should have.

A great visit to Philly and Buck's County, PA. We hope to get back there someday!

>

Summer Road Trip Part 2 - Shailer's Wedding

The second main stop on our road trip was Skaneateles, NY where my friend Shailer was getting married.

The wedding was at the Frog Pond B&B, to the northwest of the town. It was a very cute stone house with a pond (and frogs), a nice outdoor spot for the ceremony, and an old barn, where the reception was held. Shailer is a very crafty person and she had done just about everything for the wedding herself, with a few forgivable exceptions:

Her wedding bouquet (and her husband's boutaineer - sorry, that's not how it's spelled but I couldn't find the right spelling on my comp's dictionary) were made of clay. They were absolutely perfect looking and she'll get to keep forever. The woman who made the bouquet posted it on Martha Stewart - my dream.

The cake was made my Shailer's cousin Stephanie. It was a blackberry cake and was absolutely amazing. I almost had the waiter bring me an extra piece. Shailer's wedding theme was Lovebirds, which showed up on the cake, of course.

It was a beautiful event, start to finish. I only hope Shailer wasn't too wiped out by it because I might want her help when my special day comes up

:-)

Nate the Great and I stayed overnight in Skaneateles at the Packwood House, a new hotel run by the Sherwood Inn (where his parents lived for a year early in their marriage - we tried to get a room there but it was all booked up already in Jan.). We got to have breakfast at the Sherwood Inn on Sunday, then spent a very nice few hours walking around downtown Skan. and looking in many real estate office windows and picking out our dream houses. There are many to choose from in Skan. and to live in that town I would put up with my not-so-dream house. Take it from me; if you're looking to live in a small town, Central New York is the place to be.

I never posted this picture before because I was afraid Shailer might read about it. The Amy Butler Midwest Modern quilt I was making early this year was Shailer's wedding gift. I posted plenty of pictures of the front of the quilt, but I never posted this one - the stuff I put on the back. This is a picture I found on their wedding website, scanned into my computer, then printed on printable fabric. I also copied their Save-the-Date (which Shailer made herself) onto printable fabric to put onto the quilt (shown).

Jess's wedding!

Jess's wedding day started with a hangover (from the delicious and well-beveraged rehearsal dinner the night before), a big breakfast at Village Inn, which is the sister restaurant to Chicago area's Baker's Square, and mini-golfing at Smuggler's Cove. The mini-golfing was especially exciting, as the small Smuggler's Cove chain has live baby alligators that you get to feed, for a small price! Of course, we did. We golfed with Anita, my friend from high school, and her boyfriend Trevor, who tied for first place with me.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the hotel's spa/salon, where Jess and her bridesmaids were hair-do'ed and made up. It was quite the process. Finally, at 6:30, Jess's dad walked her down the aisle at the Don Cesar resort in St. Pete's Beach, FL. It was a lovely and short ceremony, which I appreciated because I had to stay on my feet in heels the whole time.

After the ceremony, all of the guests went up to the hotel terrace to enjoy hors d'oeuvres at sunset, while the wedding party walked on the beach, getting photos taken,
trying to look normal in such an abnormal and sandy setting. My favorite part was when the photographer had us all walk toward her, and then we frolicked and skipped toward her. Those should be some winning photos; I can't wait to see them.
Dinner was lovely, the bartenders didn't believe I was over 21 and kept asking to see my ID which I of course didn't have, even though my bridesmaid dress had pockets(!) The wedding band, Chameleon, played some real crowd pleasers and I got Nate to dance with me.
The cake was delicious. I would have eaten multiple pieces, but alas, the waitstaff took my half-eaten piece away when I got up to dance. Such is the way at weddings. Let this be a lesson!

Overall, I would say it was a huge success and a stunning event. I was so happy to be a part of it and I wish Jess

and Tom all the happiness in the world, of course, and even more since they're now living in Chicago and I can see them on a regular basis! So glad they changed their honeymoon plans and decided not to go to Cancun and catch Swine Flu!

What a beautiful couple!