Finally Finished!

I finally finished my niece's wedding present!  A signature quilt for a wedding present is always a good idea, not finishing it until the marriage is 3 - 4 years old, is not.  Thankfully, I'm happy to report they are still very happily married.  Can you imagine how awful I'd feel if they weren't?  Hey, it's been known to happen!  Any way, I finally finished the top, borders and all!  Now, I need to get it quilted.  I have the backing all picked out and in hand, I just need to iron it and pin it onto the zipper system that Mad About Quilts uses in their studio.  Yes, I'm going to quilt this myself.  No, it won't take another 3 - 4 years... wow, you guys are brutal!

I love the colors of this quilt.  My SIL told me that my niece loves beach colors so I chose blues, teals and purples for the main colors - all batiks of course!  The signature blocks are from a neutral batik with green undertones, which I thought would look nice with the other colors I chose.

I tried to assemble as many blocks as I could so people would have a guideline on where they were allowed to write.  Unfortunately, I came up with the idea about a month before the wedding and it took me another two weeks to find the design that I wanted.  I work better under pressure, what can I say?

I ironed a piece of freezer paper to the back of each signature block to make it easier for people to write on.  I also bought a few very fine line permanent pens from my local craft store.  I had been warned by some of my friends to be on the look out for drunken "well" wishes.  Thankfully I had this warning ahead of time so I could strike the reception early before it could get too out of hand.  However...

there was one drunken signature block.  This was made by my BIL's ex-wife.  I hate to say it, but it's my favorite block.  How could it not be, it's hysterical!  It's a lot better than what I was expecting to get for drunken messages!

I used a purple for my inner border and the outer border is a dark teal/green with sea turtles.  Overall, I'm very happy with it.  I plan on using a pantograph with seashells for the design.  I have three different King Tut cones that could possibly work but I'll need to take them out and audition them against the quilt. Unfortunately, the quilt measures 96 x 96, which is a nice size but too big for a queen size batting so I'll need to go with a king size - not too happy about that as I've already bought a queen size.  Oh well, I think I have another quilt that I'll be able to use that for.