Wedding Signature Quilt

Another UFO got finished in May - this one is a wedding signature/memory quilt made for Sue's niece, so it has been in the works for a year, and became a 1st anniversary gift.  Meghan and Tim decided not to have a guest book at their wedding, so the quilt, in essence, became their guest book.  Sue made the blocks in advance so that guests could write their messages on them at the reception.  More than just signatures, guests included their well wishes for the couple's future. 

The project started by choosing the fabrics for a rail fence pattern, which required light, medium and dark fabrics.  Because Meghan wanted neutrals, and not the darker values Sue originally selected, the values are more light, medium and darker medium.  The plan was for a scrappy quilt, and most of the fabrics are batiks.

Combinations of the light-medium-dark strips were sewn together, cut into 6.5 inch blocks, and backed with freezer paper to provide some support for writing on them. 

The blocks were assembled in groups of 4 with the darkest strips coming together at the center of each block.

Getting the top done was the easy part, the challenge was determining how to quilt it.  Sue finally settled on creating a heart design for each of the 12" blocks and drew a template on Golden Threads tissue paper.  After drawing the design once, she used the unthreaded sewing machine to transfer the design to the other sheets of paper.  That part was harder than the actual quilting, because electronic machines don't like to sew without thread and keep stopping!

Here's a view of the quilting design from the back where it's easier to see. 

The border design was found in a book and also traced onto the tissue for stitching.

Here's a close-up that shows the block and border quilting.

And here's the happy couple with their finished quilt!