Friday, October 9, 2009

50th Anniversary Quilt

The quilt that I’m the most proud of is my parent’s 50th anniversary quilt. Some of you may recall that I previously blogged about this, but since the blog was lost, I wanted to recreate the post about my favorite quilt for Bloggers Quilt Festival.

I started planning the quilt about 5 months prior to their anniversary. My parents knew we were planning on giving them a party, but they didn’t know anything about the quilt. I wanted to do a signature quilt with blocks from all of their friends and family. But as I contemplated sending out fabric blocks and permanent pens, I thought there must be a better way. So, I drew several different size boxes on a piece of paper. I sent out the paper to their friends and family with instructions to write a message inside one of the boxes with a good felt tip pen. When I got the papers back, I cut out the messages using fancy scalloped scissors. I wanted to use the messages in the border, but didn’t have time to appliqué them. So, I took several messages and laid them on the scanner. I laid a background border of several strip pieced blocks on top of the messages. Then I scanned and printed the image onto Printed Treasures fabric on my inkjet printer. Since I used several of the background fabrics in the body of my quilt, it tied together very nicely. Here is how the border turned out.


The images are 8 x 11 size sheets of fabric that I only had to sew together in sections. On the body of the quilt, I started with the garden twist pattern for the middle of the quilt. I put their wedding pictures and their parent’s pictures in the garden lattice and surrounded them with lace.
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I found a beautiful fabric called Violet Postcards by Debbie Beaves. Since violets are my Mom’s favorite flower, and the postcards had a lot of beautiful sayings and poems, I thought it was the perfect fabric for an anniversary quilt. Here is the postcard fabric (the color looks like it is blue, but it is really purple.)


I had a lot of fun searching for fabrics to match. After I pieced the middle of the quilt, I made up the rest of the quilt as I went along. I created tulip flowers with wedding pictures of myself and my 4 siblings along with grandchildren pictures. I named the quilt, Our Secret Garden for the “hidden” pictures in their “tulip garden”.  If you look closely, that’s my wedding picture in the bottom red flower.

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For the corners of the quilt, I cut up my grandmother’s doilies.

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For the back of the quilt, I printed a copy of the anniversary invitation to put in the corners along with the quilt label which reads
“Our Secret Garden”
One look, One smile,
One touch, One embrace,
One kiss, One love…
Two people, Two minds,
Two souls, Two destinies…
One road, One journey,
A few seeds
Many flowers now grow in our “Secret Garden”
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I used a pink flower panel for the back, with a pale pink marbled border, and a prairie point edge.

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I appliquéd their last initial

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And this is a full view of the quilt

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It was fun presenting the quilt at their party because everyone was in on it except my parents.  There were lots of tears, and my mother has dragged this quilt everywhere to show her friends.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this quilt as much as I enjoyed creating it and posting about it.  It was a nice trip down memory lane. Thank you for visiting my blog. I’m off to check out the other blogs for the Bloggers Quilt Festival. Thanks Amy for hosting the festival.

Karen

38 comments:

  1. Wow, Karen! It's absolutely beautiful!

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  2. Very nice, I like how you added the messages. & how they are the border!

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  3. I love the stories behind the quilt. Your mom is really feeling the love. The piece is just beautiful! I would bet that a lot of readers are going to try your example of getting signatures! thanks so much for sharing this again. cw

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  4. Wow! What a wonderful quilt! There are so many little touches that made it so personal and so perfect for their anniversary quilt. Your overall design turned out great too. No wonder it's a favorite!

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  5. That is a beautiful quilt and a wonderful story. I am glad that you chose that one because it is so special.

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  6. Your quilt is such a work of love

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  7. What an amazing gift for your parents! Awesome work :)

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  8. This is a very special gift! Thank you for sharing the story! I can understand why this will be a most treasured quilt from a loving daughter.

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  9. That's beautiful! What an amazing testament of their love! In fabric. Gorgeous!

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  10. WOW that is an amazing quilt, and a wonderful story. You are so sweet to do that for them.

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  11. What a great story, I love that you always have a heartfelt story to go with your quilts. Great job.

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  12. What a beautiful quilt - I love quilts with a wonderful story, thanks for sharing.

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  13. Oh my! So many pieces! And everything came together so well!

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  14. I love it. It's beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

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  15. What a wonderful tribute to your parents and what a beautiful quilt.

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  16. That quilt is amazing. I know it was made with love. It is such a personal treasure and one that your Mom will cherish forever. Dad, too.

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  17. What a labor of love. This quilt is amazing. Not only the messages from friends and family in the border, but the pictures, wedding invitation, last initial, your grandmother's doilies, etc. You did a beautiful job and I am sure your parents love it. Thanks for sharing.

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  18. What a beautiful, wonderful, thoughtful, well planned out, loving quilt. Everything about it is perfect! Thank you for sharing it!

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  19. WOW and COOL.. Great story and quilt... Did I mention that me and my Molly will be married 50 years in only 14 years more. That gives you plenty of time to plan our `suprise'. ;-)

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  20. That is a fabulous quilt and story! Thanks for sharing.

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  21. Your quilt is just beautiful and SO filled with love! Printing the notes onto fabric was a wonderful idea. What a treasure :)
    Glad to have found your post also... I gave up myquiltblog because I lost all my posts too often and havent had any problems with blogger.
    Im finding loads of nice quilt blogs with this quilt show. It sure was a great idea.

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  22. Georgeous! What an amzing collection for your quilt. This is truely a wonderful 50th anniversary gift.

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  23. you have very lucky parents. What a wonderful gift.

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  24. A fantastic gift to mark a significant milestone.

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  25. Wow! What a wonderful gift. So very special with all the memories and pictures that you pulled together in a beautiful design. Great ideas and lots of special details.

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  26. What a treasure to make for your parents. It is beautiful. Great idea!

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  27. What a wonderful quilt for your parents to treasure. I made a family wall hanging with pictures and it was tricky to find a pattern that suited them and the photographs. I love your fabric and your wonderful design.
    It shows much thought and creativity.
    Thanks for sharing your beautiful treasure.
    Warmest regards,
    Anna

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  28. Oh, Karen! I just love your entry in the festival, and I LOVE the story of the quilt! what a loving tribute to your parents, and I'm sure they are so proud of it.

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  29. Cheerful quilt. You did a great job.

    Thanks for sharing your story, quilt & participating in the Bloggers Quilt Festival.

    SewCalGal
    www.sewcalgal.blogspot.com

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  30. What a beautiful quilt and a beautiful story. The love that went into can be seen such by looking at it.

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  31. Such a beautiful quilt and beautiful story. I'm sure your parents really appreciated all of your effort!

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  32. That is a beautiful quilt, and so clever. Now, my 50th anniversary is in a few years. Would you like my address now or later? (giggle)

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  33. What a neat story! Thanks for sharing!

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  34. This is beautiful. Awesome work.

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  35. For over a year I have been planning on a photo wallhanging for my brother and his wife for their 50th anniversary. Well, time is running out and I'm just getting started on it (although they did mess me up by having the celebration 2 weeks before the actual anniversary!)
    Your quilt is lovely and has given me some ideas--thank you!

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  36. For over a year I have been planning on a photo wallhanging for my brother and his wife for their 50th anniversary. Well, time is running out and I'm just getting started on it (although they did mess me up by having the celebration 2 weeks before the actual anniversary!)
    Your quilt is lovely and has given me some ideas--thank you!

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