Friday Finish: Home is... quilt

Last year my oldest son was married in Washington, and at the Florida reception we had guests sign quilt blocks. You can go here to see the quilt for their wedding (delivered just a little bit late), so I was happy to give them the quilt made with the signature blocks in person on their one year anniversary (which was celebrated in Montana).  We're all over the place ;-)

Leo with his parents

The theme of their wedding and the subsequent Florida party was based on the Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros song Home.  My daughter even played this song on the violin during the processional, so I decided to make a wall hanging with the song's chorus on the front and piece the signature blocks on the back. 

some guests have a wicked sense of humor!

During the process, I randomly came across this quilt which also has the lyrics but uses a different piecing method.  (Has this ever happened to you?) Using the techniques in Tonya's Word Play Quilts, I free pieced the letters using natural linen, quilter's linen and a variety of my favorite fabric scraps.

individual letters making the words

from design wall to design floor

 As I mentioned the signature blocks were written last summer, and the individual letters have been pieced for a while.  I brought the "parts" with me to Montana in order to finish the wallhanging by the anniversary date.  Working with a design wall is so much better than a design floor ;-)

it's growing

The assembling of the quilt top, quilt back and most of the quilting was done before the "newlyweds" arrived, but a little quilting remained as well as the binding.  This called for some sneaky stitching ;-)

straight line quilting

 Straight line quilting was done with Aurifil #5011 to match the linen and a variegated #4060 to give a little texture.  There is also a line of a bright King Tut variegated (#944) stitched randomly here and there just because ;-)  

only quilted through the top and the batting

I worried the numerous lines of quilting would interfere with the handwritten messages on the back, so when basting I left off the backing.  This meant the quilting only shows on the top.

another humorous message

I learned this trick from Juanita Yeager's workshop.  The backing was then stitched to the back of the quilted piece and bound.  This technique probably wouldn't work on a large quilt but is just fine for a wallhanging.

Home is... quilt

Here's the completed quilt hanging temporarily in Montana.  Looking forward to receiving a picture of the quilt hanging in its new home.

beautiful family

Quilt stats:  "Home is...." quilt, free pieced letters in linen and quilter's cotton on front, signature blocks in Kona cotton solids on back, binding is Weave by Moda, measures 26"x39"

If you want to see other letter quilts and/or lyric quilts, check out the Unruly Quilter,  The Proverbial Quiltalong with Poppyprint using Denyse Schmidt's pattern,  Elizabeth Hartman's Billboard Quiltalong, and of course Kaye's beautiful version of Home I mentioned above. 

Linking up with finish it up Friday and crossing this off my WIP list for our OrlandoMQG challenge.  

Thanks for stopping by,