Wedding Reception "Practice" Quilt WIP

My sister got married this year and I couldn't go because I was pregnant. Doctors don't like it when you are 38 weeks pregnant and want to travel to another country, even if it is just the United States.

She had always wanted her wedding reception to be outdoors in my parents back yard, so we had a reception for her and her husband later when she came up the the Great White North in the summer (redundant- no one comes in the winter).

Anyway, despite the brief and violent thunderstorm that blew threw about twenty minutes before the start, the reception was lovey, all in white, with lights, cupcakes, and desserts.

My part of the reception was to make the cupcakes and a country chic type (is that even a type?) bunting to be strung across the yard with the lights.

I grabbed a pile of fabrics from the clearance racks at the local big fabric store. Um, ya, I wasn't going to spend a lot of money on something that would be used for one night and not even be seen up close. I mean really design and aesthetic count, but I'm cheap people. Cut the fabric into triangles and sewed them to ribbon.  Easy Peasy.

I had some left over fabric with which I thought it would be cool to make into a quilt that would remind my sister of her great dream wedding reception. I attempted a stripey chevron look. Pardon the blurry pictures!

Sigh. I learned many things with this quilt. Its become my "practice quilt" As in, "oh crap!...., um..., ok..., well this will be just for practice" quilt. I sewed strips of material together to create the striped part and then sewed the whole long striped piece to a long piece of white material to create a tube of sorts. I then cut the tube on the diagonal to create half square triangles.

The white fabric I used was from my mom's stash, which means it could be from anywhere in the eighties. It ended up being cut on the bias when made into half square triangles, which meant it tended to stretch. And I tended to iron the crap out of it. Yeah, so ..... There was a lot of squaring up afterward.
Then I decided on a layout. Then I sewed it together and of course none of the striped pieces matched up. Sigh.

But I persevered. Not because I'm not a quitter, I'm stubborn.
By now I've decided that I'll just make my sister a better different quilt.

So now I'm in the midst of trying to free motion quilt the sucker. Cause I'm so good at that (pfft!). And, like, I practice FMQ all the time.. (not).

Some parts look better than others.

Practice quilt, practice quilt, practice quilt.
 If I say it enough maybe it will make all the wonky stitching go away.


Linking up for the first time ever!!