Jenny Lee's Quilt

Several months ago, my girl, Jenna, had a brilliant (read "cracked") idea, which she posed to me during our last set of quilting classes at the Sewing Arts Center, while I was under the influence of a divorce induced stooper I might add. This, err, clever conception of hers surrounded our mutual friend, Jenny Lee, and her upcoming nuptials in October. Oh yes, dear reader, you can guess what's coming next...Jenna went on to say that seeing as how we have become such expert quilters (Can you all say coercion?), having recently completed one quilt apiece (you read that correctly...one...quilt...a...piece), that she thought it a splendid idea that we show Jenny just how much we adore her (and her betrothed of course) by making the couple a wedding quilt, a queen size wedding quilt that is. I believe I just stared at her, deer-in-the-headlights like, drool dripping from the corner of my mouth, responding somewhat unintelligibly, "Uh, okay."

Despite my, err, reservations about our collective abilities to tackle such a gigantor project, in hindsight I'm happy to report that Jenna's idea was indeed a masterful one. Not only did we make an awesome heirloom for our beloved Jenny and her man, but Jenna and I found out that we make a pretty darn good quilting team. Before going into the gory details, feast your eyes on the results of our laborious journey...



Oh, and yeah, that would be the Double Irish Chain quilt pattern...I know, we're nuts.

Here are some detail shots...







Now for the gory quilting details!

As it turns out, I rather enjoy cutting PERFECT strips of fabric over and over and over again. Actually, it's kinda meditative. Jenna, on the other hand, doesn't mind chain piecing strip after strip after bloody strip. Oh and pressing? We both are good with a steaming hot iron. Go figure! After having the strips assembled, I sub-cut 'em for more assemblage. This time we both took to our machines for an anal exercise of matching up corners and seams. Once the individual blocks were assembled we both laid them out on the floor and simultaneously gasped at the size of the behemoth we were putting together. I then went back to my machine to assemble the top. Jenna was on iron duty at that point. Once assembled, we tag-teamed the borders and backing, readying ourselves for the homestretch, pinning the layers. Quilt pinned, it was time for Jenna to machine quilt the top (not my favorite portion of the program) and she did a wonderful job I might add. Top quilted, I attached the binding around the entire front edge with my machine. We then put an end to our co-quilting journey by spending a week's worth of lunch hours hold up in one of the cube farm's conference rooms, tacking down the binding to the back of the quilt with needles, thread, thimbles and thousands of hand sewn blind stitches.

Whew, makes me tired just writing all of that! But I gotta tell ya all, it was so worth it. As not only did I have the privilege of spending myriad Sundays in craft with Jenna, but I was able to witness the joy on Jenny's face when we presented her with her gift...



It just doesn't get much better than that...