The Surprise Bridal Shower

Before I tell you about the bridal shower I attended Saturday (and the quilt I took), let me address the quilt along. 

Today is the day of the final two drawings.  I am going to wait until the end of the day to do those drawings.  Just in case.  The quilts on flickr are all so lovely!  Yeah!

Okay, so the background to the quilt story today is this quilt:

It's name is "Diamond in the Rough" by a friend of mine, Emily Herrick of Crazy Old Ladies.  HERE is a link to her blog and the pattern of the quilt above.  It is one of my favorite patterns of hers.  I have wanted to make it for a while, but the time was never right. 

Fast forward to last Sunday.  I picked up an announcement I had received to double check the date of a bridal shower for my cousin's financee.  It was yesterday.  Now I had known they were engaged a few months ago, and I had thought then -- I bet they would like a black and white quilt.  I should get one started.  That never happened.  I called my aunt Sunday or Monday to see what colors they liked.  She said black and red.  I was actually hoping they liked different colors because I had other quilts that I could have pulled out of storage and given them.  I didn't have a black and white quilt handy. 

So the shower didn't surprise me at all except that all of a sudden the date was less than a week away.  Ahh, I needed a fast pattern.  FAST.  Emily's pattern, "Diamond in the Rough" came to mind.  I knew it would be perfect.  I thought I would have enough stash for it.  I didn't.  I had to go grab 3 -- 1/3 yards of the white with black.  The red is Kaffe Fasset's shot cotton.  I didn't start sewing this quilt until Friday afternoon.  Yes, Friday.  Yes, Friday as in the day before the shower.  (In my family we have a tradition of giving our wedding presents at the shower.)

I didn't think too much as I was putting the quilt together.  I took as many shortcuts as I dared -- like not trimming my dog ears.  I needed it a little bigger and was not about to make the cute border Emily had.  As I was sewing I tried to decide what border I wanted.  I ended up just extending the black.  Love the result.  Can't believe how much I love this quilt!  It came together perfectly!  (Meaning better than I intended.  I was going so fast that the points don't match up in a couple places.)  Here's my quilt:

The only thing I would do different is put the binding on the bias for those stripes.  It has black wool batting in it -- so nice!  On the back is a black and white flannel.  It is an Andover Fabric piece from one of their Olivia lines.  It is one of those flannels that reminds you that sometimes you really like flannel. 

Oh, so Friday night, I think it was about 10ish, I took the quilt off my quilt machine.  I bound it Saturday morning in time to make it to the bridal shower.   I don't remember what my kids had for supper Friday night.  I remember saying yes to what ever it was they asked me for.  I don't think they asked me if they could have chocolate cake for supper.  Then again. . . .