How hard could it be?

Really freaking hard! That's how hard. *breathe* and now the backstory.

I'm getting married in a month. Some time significantly earlier in the wedding planning process I thought it would be really cool to make my own ties and pocket squares for the groomsmen to wear at the wedding and then have them be the groomsmens' gifts. I made some test ties with pretty good success and decided that yes, this was feasible.

Practice. I'm shooting for slightly skinnier than the one on the right for the final product.

Yesterday, I tried to make a pocket square. I thought to myself "it is literally a square of fabric with a hemmed edge, how hard could it be?" Famous last words. Turns out, it is way harder than it looks. I only got one side done and it looks like a blind, one-handed monkey sewed it. My new plan is to machine sew it because I apparently cannot hand sew. It is also shockingly difficult to cut out a perfect square of satin. I used my rotary cutter and that was not successful. I'm going to make a square template and use scissors on the rest of these suckers (which honestly seems ridiculous, it's a square for crying out loud!).

It actually doesn't look that bad in this picture.

Like I said, blind monkey.

I really don't want "homemade/handmade" to be a synonym for "kind of shitty" like it so often is (in my opinion). At the same time I am very stubborn so I don't want to give up and buy pocket squares. *sigh* To Be Continued...

True Colors Complete and Gifted

Last Saturday at about 1 am I popped the True Colors quilt in the dryer. A mere 16 hours later, it was delivered to the intended recipient: my newlywed friends. This was definitely a pinch finish ^_^

I slightly modified my quilting plan because I got some crinkles in the backing. So the middle border was left empty and the smallest inner border got loops instead of matchstick. I felt that trying to do matchstick quilting would exacerbate my crinkling problem. Because I didn't have time to undo any folds that occurred in the main part of the quilt, I stuck the label much further from the edge than usual. It perfectly hides the one serious crinkle I quilted in.

Quilting from the back. From the front it is almost invisible, which is cool.

I am super proud to say I made that label all by myself. I had some really thick interfacing lying around (probably too thick in all honesty) and just went at it with the FMQ foot. Not perfect by any means, but presentable. As I was attaching that label shortly before midnight Friday night, my fiancé was all "you should put a message inside so if the label falls off they'll find it." Of course my first thought was "Shut up stupid face I'm almost done here and no one will ever see it anyway because this label is NOT falling off. EVER." But two minutes later he convinced me to do something which, in retrospect, is super adorable. I put hearts with the couple's and their daughter's initials on them inside right before I sewed down the last side.

Not the best heart shapes ever, but pretty adorable. 

I sent a photo of just the label to the bride Saturday morning wishing her all the best for her big day. She was apparently tantalized all day. On Monday I got the best message ever from her. They loved it so much they took it with to Florida for their honeymoon. Later in the week I got this:

Even their 2 year old loves it!

I'm calling this 100% success, even with the numerous imperfections. Linking to Finish it Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.