A quilt for my sister

My sister has been such a great sport in waiting over a year to get her wedding present - especially since she's been bugging me for a quilt since I started sewing forever ago.  It took me months to come up with a design, since I knew it had to be extra special for my favorite person in the whole world.

After watching my friend Anna make Word Play blocks for a bee, I thought that some sort of written message would be perfect for my sister's quilt. 

The text wasn't all that difficult to come up with, since the movie Rent is one of my go-to movies to watch while sewing (pretty much any musical, really).  The front is the first stanza from the song "I'll Cover You", and the back is the main phrase from the refrain.  If you haven't heard the song - listen to it!

My sister is a huge Rent fan, plus I think that the lyrics are great for a wedding quilt.  I'm sure her husband won't appreciate the sentiment nearly as much (my husband basically replied with "gag"), but he'll have to put up with since he's married now! And I'm kind of giddy that the back says "I'll cover you" and it's a quilt, that ya know, you cover yourself with.  Teehee.

Here's a better view of the text - I was getting some crazy shadows in all of the quilting this afternoon, so I took a much more flatly lit photo that shows off the letters better.  

I had such a blast making all 67 of these letters, and they went much more quickly than I thought they would.  The Word Play Quilts book gives a general diagram for piecing all of the letters, but they're sewn together very casually, by simply by joining small, medium, and large background strips and snipping off the extra with scissors.  No measuring!!

 

I think my favorite part of this quilt is the background fabric.  We had these exact sheets on our bed when we were little girls, and I snatched them up from my parent's linen closet a few years back.  I didn't quite have enough to make the entire quilt - the finished size is 60 x 90" - so I'd always keep my eyes open for more of this print when thrifting.  I think it took me 2 flat twin sheets and a couple pillowcases to complete this. 

I love love love this quilt so darn much, and if it wasn't going to my wonderful sister, I would definitely keep it for myself.  She's flying in from Miami tonight (I haven't seen her in six months!), and I can't wait for her to open it.  I'd say that I hope she likes it - but I think I already know the answer.  Love you so much, Abby!