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!

The Wedding

It’s so nice to go to a wedding, especially one where you can tell how happy the bride and groom are to be with each other. This was one of those. They are a really cute couple. My cousin Ashley’s wedding was beautiful, and I’m not just saying that. She, as well as the entire wedding, was gorgeous.

Her colors were pink and brown, which she very cleverly worked into her ensemble. She had a creamy white dress with a chocolate satin sash around the waist, and the best pink veil/headpiece. The veil looked vintage, but was actually new. Apparently she found a lady online, told her a bit about herself, and the lady made the veil. It was stunning!

The bridesmaids wore short pink dresses with brown sashes, except the maid of honor, who wore brown with a pink sash. The girls’ bouquets were just fabulous. And they had my favorites, hydrangeas and peonies.

The men wore dark brown suits with pink vests and ties. I felt badly for them in those suits! It was hot, hot, hot and extremely humid that day. I don’t know how she did it, but Ashley looked great the whole evening. The vows were in front of a pond with three statues on pillars and Chihuly bubbles floating in it. As I mentioned, the weather was HOT, about 91 degrees, which is 9 degrees over my 82 limit. As I arrived at the Botanic Gardens large, dark, stormy clouds began rolling in, making my carefully straightened hair curl back up. The weather is always the scary part of an outdoor wedding or event. I must say though, she lucked out. There was a huge crack of thunder during the vows, but the rain didn’t start until they were announced to the guests as husband and wife. Huge drops started as they made their way back down the aisle, and everyone started running for cover. Whew that was close!

Carolina, DiscoJen’s daughter, was the flower girl. She looked so cute, but unfortunately didn’t feel well the day of the wedding. She’s normally an outgoing, talkative, smiley child, but she just felt so awful that day that there’s hardly any pictures of her smiling. She was so looking forward to being the flower girl too. It’s all she talked about up until the wedding. In the car on the way down she called excitedly to me “VICKI! I HAVE SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO SAY!” I asked her what was so important and she said “I’M GOING TO BE A FLOWER GIRL IN ASHLEY’S WEDDING!”

Thank goodness for the groom’s nephew, without him walking her down the very long path to where the vows took place, I don’t think she would have made it! For those planning a wedding, having the flower girl and ring bearer hold hands and walk together is a very effective way to get them down the aisle.

The reception was in the Spink Pavilion at the Gardens which was a narrow room, lined with windows. Check out the tables! Aren’t they amazing? And the flowers! Have you ever seen flowers like this?

The food was fantastic too. They had a blueberry theme going on with the catering. There was a blueberry mojito drink featured during the cocktail hour that was great. It was very refreshing in the hot weather. There were blueberries in the cake too. I forgot to ask Ashley if there was some symbolism for the blueberries, or if she and Chris were just concerned that their loved ones don’t get enough anti-oxidants.

My dad thought that they must have fortified the tables for those vases, since they were like 4 feet tall and filled with water.

I waited to post about the wedding, because I wanted to show you all what I made for their gift:

It’s from Tula Pink’s line, Moonlight Forest. As soon as I saw this line I thought of Ashley. First, it’s pink and brown. Second, it has bunnies, squirrels and various nature-like items hidden in the fabric. It’s so cool how she weaves them in! Ashley loves bunnies and used to name the squirrels when she lived in Colorado as a child. The owls in the line totally reminded me of the Beatles, and she loves the Beatles as well. I named it “All You Need is Love” I hope she likes it. I made it big enough for her and Chris to cuddle under together in cold weather.

The designing of the quilt was very different for me. I usually draw it out, have a pattern or put it together on my Electric Quilt program. For this quilt, I just grabbed a bunch of my charm packs of the Moonlight Garden and the Sweet Hearts collection by Deb Strain and Arin Turnmire and wacked them apart willy nilly. Then I sewed them all back together again into long strips. I highlighted the owls by fussy cutting them out, and making them their own row. I needed something not so busy to break up all the pattern, so Jenny helped me pick out the dark brown w/purple dots. I think it really brought the top together, don’t you?

I like to piece my backings with my leftovers, so I took the extra strips and pieced them in with the brown bunny brocade fabric.
I quilted it with hearts and swirls all over in a variegated hot pink, turquoise, and white thread by Aurifil, my thread of choice. I outlined the owls and some of their design elements. And in the border of the corner square units I quilted some free hand leaves.