Wedding Quilt #1

This August I started working on two wedding quilts for two weddings we are attending this fall. The first wedding happened last weekend so now I can share the finished quilt. The second quilt is still in the quilting stage, but I have until Thanksgiving to finish that one.

This first quilt started with a browse through a couple quilt books I have. I noticed a pine tree block, but was unsure how I could combine all the rectangles into an interesting pattern. Then I thought about how I could make them in various sizes and create a scene.

So I opened up Excel, which has become my favorite planning tool for both quilts and sweater and began playing around with increasing the size of the tree block to create interest and a landscape. I ended up changing the proportions of some of the trees which became a bit of a challenge later in the piecing process. By changing the proportions of the tree, I no longer had triangles that would piece together in the same way and so had to be creative to get the right size parts to fit together.
I decided I would use a light green for the background behind the trees and piece it together in a way to create the sense of mountains behind. Then I would use strips of different shades of blue to create the sky. When I bought the fabric, I found some great textures for the pine trees and a light green fabric with small green leaves on it for the background color.

It took quite a while to piece it together because of the way I'd designed the mountains and the sky. I had to draw it into blocks for myself and figure out which way the blocks would fit together.

My original plan had been to tie the quilt but when I finished piecing it, I couldn't figure out how I would tie it that wouldn't detract from the overall scene. So I ended up quilting clouds in the sky, out lining the trees, and putting in some additional lines of hills across the light green. The quilting shows up well on the light blue backing.
The plan was for the quilt to be 68 x 50 lap size, but I forgot to measure it before I gave it away. I think it ended up pretty close to that. I took these photos in the evening light last week so the colors are a bit yellow and the light is low in the sky. Here is the whole thing (except the top right corner seems to be bent under).