Wedding Quilt Is Being Criss-Crossed

I finally finished the quilt top for the wedding quilt on Friday!

Completed top

Interrupted border - my new favourite :)

This is one of my favourite batik fabrics in the quilt.
I like the blue on the left, too.

An idea of what it might look like
on a bed - it's definitely big enough
for a couple, look at all the overhang!

Ready for sandwiching

Very importantly, I've learned to prepare my binding strips BEFORE I start quilting, so I don't have to switch sewing machine feet over and over in the end. Easiest to just leave the walking foot on to attach the binding.

I put together a quilt back by Saturday afternoon and had the massive thing pinned by the evening.

Pieced backing

I had to move furniture in my living room to get enough floor space to spread it out. That gave me great incentive to get it pinned and out of there quickly, so I could walk across the room again!


I also didn't have batting that was big enough, so I had to piece it... I used to do this by tongue-and-grooving the batting, i.e. splitting about 2" of the edge of the batting on either edge to be joined, removing one of the split layer on one edge and nestling the remaining layer between the two layers of the other edge. Just like tongue-and-groove flooring.

Then Amandajean of CrazyMomQuilts showed how she sews batting together. I tried that on a couple of quilts and it's never left a lumpy seam, so that's what I did here. AmanadaJean now sews the batting by machine, but I couldn't do that with polyester batting, obviously. So hand-sewing it is. Fairly simple and quick, though.

I just do a binding stitch

... and pull it fairly tight

It took 477 safety pins to pin the quilt. My poor finger nails got quite a beating from all the pushing and closing of pins.


Best of all, the quilt made a very funky sound when I turned it over... like 477 claws clicking on a floor ;)

Check out my neat 4" pin placements! I briefly considered quilting a 4" grid on this quilt, it would look neat on the back.

But because people are supposed to look at the front, I'm quilting straight lines criss crossing all-over, as inspired by some of the blogs. The criss-crossing lines make me think of the wedding couple's paths in life having crossed, and the vast choices of which new paths to follow that lie ahead in their future.

I sitll can't get over how big this quilt is. Here it's covering my dining/quilting table, machine, chair and ironing table like some invasive overgrowth.

I'm happy to see this coming together, and I've realized that the fabrics remind me of the lake in the woods that the groom's family owns and where I've made many good memories over the years. Maybe I was subconsciously inspired by the ripping water, the brown trees and the curly leaves...