Homemade Wedding

Well, it got a little crazy around here, but thanks to a team effort, the 15 table runners were finished in the nick of time forEmily's wedding!

Things were going well, but then my father-in-law had a mishap in Florida and had to have some risky surgery on his neck, so the hubby flew down to be with him the entire week that I was supposed to go to Paige's to quilt the runners. I couldn't very well leave the dogs locked up for 11 hours during the day, then lock them up at night again.

In a panic I asked others for help and Jennie, being the wonderful and amazing friend that she is, said she would quilt them for me on her Grandquilter in exchange for some of my Heather Ross collection. Emily and I found the perfect pantograph to quilt, but it needed to be shrunk down to fit the Grandquilter. Jennie's hubby was able to scale it down to the proper size and it ended up being better than the original size. And because Jennie is awesome, she also squared them all up for me! Isn't she the best?!?!?

Emily helped out with the runners too. She was my ironing minion. She was a big help. Ironing takes a lot of time, so having someone to iron while I cut and sewed was a huge time saver.

Here are the results or our efforts:

We searched TJ Maxx and Homegoods for the pots. Emily had found a few in the colors of the fabric, and we all went on a hunt to find enough of them. Emily's friends planted and nutured the herbs for them and made recipe cards featuring the herbs in that pot. I cut left over fabric to back the recipes.

The little pots are citronella candles that we found at TJ Maxx. They totally matched the pots and the fabric. And as a bonus, they kept the bugs away!

I quilted the pinwheel table runner myself. It's based on the Pleasant Home tablerunner. The fabrics are all Lantern Bloom by Laura Gunn for Michael Miller. It's the same line that I used for my boss's quilt.

The gorgeous pot was created entirely by Emily's friend, I think it was Alison, but I'm not totally sure, so I'll have to double check that. Isn't it perfect?

The cake was awesome! Check out those 3d lantern blooms!

The reception was held at the Glessner House, which has a great history to it. The Glessner family was very interesting, especially the women. If you are in Chicago, you should put it on your list of things to see. The park next door was beautiful too. The ceremony was in the park, and unfortunately, the 30% of scattered showers that we all thought wouldn't be a problem, was a problem.

Beginning of the ceremony:

The rain begins and the men all totally ignore it, but the women are all feeling like Emily.

The men continue to ignore it, but the bride takes action to protect her dress and everything else she worked so hard on. It was cute, she kind of grabbed the two men and they all shuffled to the shelter of the tree.

They planted an oak tree in honor of the Emily and Brett's wedding. The groom's friend performed the ceremony, and gave a little oak tree info while they walked over to it. He read that the oak is associated with Zeus, the god of lightening. He chuckled, looked at the black cloud overhead and said, "that's a little ironic."

The music the whole night was fantastic. The groom is a musician and two of his friends planned and performed all of the music for the ceremony. I didn't get pictures of them unfortunately. The acoustic guitar was really beautiful.

And the food, OMG! The food was beyond good, it was amazing! They did two signature drinks that were perfect for the heat. One was lemonade w/vodka and mint, the other was grapefruit juice w/gin and basil. Emily even found alcohol that was organic and produced here in the midwest. The hubby commented that he doesn't like gin, but he could drink the Death's Door gin all night. And then proceeded to do just that! Luckily the bartenders weren't overly liberal w/ the gin.

The caterer was City Provisions. They try to do things as sustainable as possible and use local and organic ingredients when possible.

Even the hubby, who usually doesn't pay much attention to food was carrying on and on about the food. The chef and I bonded. I really liked him. He told me not to miss the crab cakes, and he was not kidding. Holy cow, they were amazing. I was bummed because I missed the grilled shrimp on grits appetizer when we took the mini tour of the Glessner House.

It was just such a fun wedding. Everyone danced and mingled and talked to people they had never met. A very friendly crowd. Emily's Aunt Mary did the flowers, and they were gorgeous. Other friends helped design the invitations, and Emily took a letterpress class and printed them herself.

She didn't have any attendants, just the children of her friends, and they all wore what ever they wanted. Two of them had on ties made of Nicey Jane by Heather Bailey! The funny thing about that is that Heather Bailey is the sister-in-law to Laura Gunn, the designer of the table runner fabric! What are the chances! Of course no one realized that buy me, with my crazy fabric identification skills.

I have a ton more photos of the runners up close, as well as the zebra and hot pink You Go Girl bag and Fruitcake Christmas quilt that I also made during this time. The issue is that I took the SD card out of the camera to get the photos off of it, and now I can't find the blasted thing. I'm sure it will show up, and it will be someplace stupid where I left it.

Tomorrow I work out at Tammy Tadd's, and Sunday I have tickets to see Sting w/the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Ravinia!!!!!! Thanks Eileen!!!!

DiscoJen, Sophie, Ashley and I are going. The hubby commented that it will be an estrogen-fest. We have been planning our menus. It looks like there will be rain, so I'm going to try to whip up an oilcloth backed blanket tonight for it. And I will be able to use my super cute Liberty of London umbrella if it does rain, so it's all good!

A very productive weekend.

It's been a productive three day weekend for me. I took a mental health day on Friday and spent a lovely day with my friends Pattie, Michele and my wonderful cousin Ashley. We met up at Acorn Quilts for their big sale on Friday morning. We got Ashley some great Deer Valley fabrics to make a wall hanging for her entry way. This will be her first ever quilt! It will be fun to teach her the art that I absolutely love. I'm hoping she'll love it too. She has a baby quilt she wants to make for a friend as well, so maybe we'll do that one first. Speaking of that, Ashley - I found this in my stash. It's purple and green, and the line is called "Pampered Pooch" from Moda. Part of the proceeds from the line go to the ASPCA. Let me know what you think of it for the baby quilt..

After the store, we ate lunch at my absolute favorite restaurant in Rockford, Mary's Market. I tell you, if I were to buy a franchise, it would be this place. I don't think they franchise though, I think it's a family owned thing. Seriously, if you are anywhere near Rockford, IL, go eat at a Mary's Market. You won't regret it!

Then Ashley and I found the strangest looking dog wandering down the street. He had the head of a normal dog, but the body of a Basset Hound/Dachshund mix. Very strange looking, but very sweet. Unfortunately we found his trashy, super drunk owner. The dog didn't look abused or anything, but this guy gave us both the creeps and neither of us wanted to turn the dog back over to him. Yuck, ick and ewwww about sums up this guy.

Then I as I was heading home, a massive storm hit. Luckily I knew where I was, and that the Machine Shed restaurant was one stop light away. It was perfect because they have a large drive through overhang in front of the building and the wind was coming from the direction of the restaurant building, so I was perfectly shielded. It was one wicked storm. I took the back roads home and there were branches down everywhere.

When I got home I was relieved to see that the power was on, so that was a bonus. I got right to sewing. First was a bag comissioned for a little girl's birthday party. They are doing a horse themed party and taking the girls for pony rides. I made her this:

Can you believe that fabric? It's perfect!  I was shocked that I was able to find such fantatic horse fabric that wasn't either western or cartoony. And if you look really closely on the counter of the first photo, you'll see my brand-spanking new EQ7 upgrade!!!! The hubby got it for my birthday. After about 6 emails and 4 reminders, he finally ordered it. (EQ is quilt designing software that's absolutely fabulous for those non-quilter's out there).

I also made many more table runners for Emily's wedding:

I know this one looks just like the one above, but it's the reverse of it, see - the branches are in the middle of the mosaic on this one!

So what is that, 9 more done? Thank goodness the Harry Potter books on tape are long. I'm on the Deathly Hallows now, so I can just listen for hours and hours while sewing.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I just have to share more pictures of the Rose That Lived. It was literally glowing this morning!

And for Father's Day, I made my dad and brother-in-law individual strawberry-rhubarb pies. It's my dad's favorite and they had fresh strawberries and rhubarb at the farmer's market that Karen I went to yesterday morning. Since I did a standard pie for my dad's birthday at the beginning of the month, I thought I'd mix it up a bit. I'm rather pleased with how they came out.

As I was sliding them onto the preheated pan, I dropped 2 of them. Magic happened to be right under the one that dropped directly into one of the dog dishes and had it down his gullet before I could yell "no!" to him. The hubby told him he was a bad dog to not listen when I said 'no', but really, he had swallowed it before I could even yell, so technically, he didn't disobey.

Didn't they turn out pretty?

I packaged them in left over Martha Stewart boxes from Christmas:

We all went to the Kane County Cougars minor league baseball game today. We were really lucky, the weather totally held up. I like the minor league games, they take half the time of the Major league games and are more entertaining. I tried to teach the nephew how to do the YMCA dance, but at 10 months old, he didn't really get the arm movements down. He did dance to the music though.

Well, it's almost 8pm here, and I'm off to watch Masterpiece Mystery on my local PBS station. I hope it's Miss Marple or Pirout tonight!

Three Down, Ten to go!

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about making table runners for my friend Emily's wedding. She wanted to help, so she's been over the last couple of nights helping to design and iron. She doesn't sew, so that part is up to me. She seemed interested in learning the rotary cutter, so she may be upgraded to cutting soon.

Emily chose the turquoise and oranges from the gorgeous Lantern Bloom line that I made my boss's birthday quilt with. I started out making Pleasant Home's Pinwheel Runner, but Emily wanted something that showcased the fabric more, so we went with larger blocks and rectangles and the such. We designed 3 different styles. There will be 8 of style number 1, and 4 each of the other two.

We finished piecing these two last night:

Please forgive the terrible photos, my editing software isn't doing what it should tonight.

And because we need to eat, and both Emily and I love to cook, we made a fabulous pesto (with basil from the garden) pasta with grilled shrimp and a salad with roasted red and yellow peppers, pine nuts and lettuce, also from my garden. Not to be overly humble, but holy cow are we good cooks. It was it gooooodddd! I had some left overs for lunch today and had to use much self retraint to not eat it all and save some for dinner.

The recipe we loosely used was this:

Skewer shrimp, brush w/olive oil, sprinkly w/salt and pepper. Grill until done. About 3-4 mins each side.

Brush peppers w/EVOO,  grill about 6 mins each side. Cut up when cooled, toss w/lettuce & pinenuts.

Make pasta per directions on box.

Pesto:

2 Cups Basil (I used 3 different kinds, Italian, Pesto and Spicy Globe)

7 tbs EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

3 med garlic cloves, peeled

1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan (we kind of just threw a few hunks into the food processor)

1/4 cup toasted pinenuts

Zest from 1 med lemon

1 tsp salt

Put all ingredients into food processor and blend the beejeezes out of it, until it's all blended and, well, looks like pesto should look.

 Add more EVOO if needed.

Toss pesto into pasta, place shrimp on top and Bon Appetit!

Bloggers Quilt Festival

My friend Pattie told me I should participate in the Amy's Creative Side Blogger Quilt Festival, (formerly known as Park City Girl) and I thought, why not, I'll do it!
I think Amy and Jennie thought this idea up of having a blogger quilt show about a year ago, but I missed that one. I tried to get the little button thingy to post, but I couldn't figure out how to get the code for it. Lame, I know. Jennie figured it out for me!



We both agreed that my Lantern Bloom quilt had to be the one to showcase. It's my current favorite, although I've pretty much loved all of the quilts I've made.

I made this quilt for my most fabulous and wonderful boss's birthday. She makes going to my day job extremely enjoyable and is a very generous and fun person, so I decided she deserved a quilt for her birthday.

It was love at first site for me with this fabric. I resisted it for quite sometime, but then it was getting scarce, so I bought an eighth yard bundle from Quilt Home. I decided that the Slide Show pattern by Terry Atkinson would showcase the fabric perfectly. Of course by buying the fabric prior to deciding on a pattern, I didn't have a wide enough cut for the big squares, so I decided to border them.

My favorite quilt saying is "it's not a mistake, it's a design opportunity" and this was definitely one of those. I L.O.V.E. how it came out, so much so that I may need to make one for me. 
I quilted it with vertical wavy lines to achieve a more organic look. Jennie suggested it to Michelle for her table runner at our retreat and I thought it was a great idea for this quilt as well.
I put Curly Minkee on the back because my boss absolutely adores Minkee. I'll tell you, if you haven't felt Curly Minkee, your life is not complete! People can't help themselves when they see it. Their eyes go all unfocused and their hand starts to reach for it as though they have not control over it. Then they pet the Minkee and say 'oooo....it's soooo soft....' in a dreamy voice.

The quilting looks great on Minkee too.
These are a few of my favorite blocks:




There are currently over 500 quilts listed in the show and a slew of them are in the group pool on Flickr as well. Check them out for inspiration.
I've noticed several bloggers are doing giveaways and sales at their online stores in conjunction with the festival, so you should check out the festival page as well.