The Zack-and-Sara Wedding Quilt of Burning Love

So in August of 2009, Robb and I started making a quilt. In June of 2010, we finished it. And quite happily, packaged it up and sent it to dear friends Zack and Sara, who got married last August. A little late, but when it comes to things that you hope people will have and enjoy for the rest of their lives, I think ten months is about the right gestation period. You don't want to just crank out something like this willy nilly!


The idea to make Zack and Sara a quilt came on their wedding day.

(Here's a photo of Sara from the front, cuz I know everyone is more interested in seeing the bride than the groom! Also, this is a favorite photo that captured the housekeeper, who was trying to help out with the train but just kept on walking down the aisle with all of the bridesmaids...in her jeans. Oops! Sorry...I couldn't resist!)

While that day was in all likelihood one of the best of their lives, it didn't start out so well for me and Robb. We had woken up in the hotel in the morning, all set to go scope out some Mexican food, when I realized that I couldn't find my engagement ring. It wasn't on the nightstand where I'd left it (and for those who are wondering, I don't sleep with it on...the ring gets too tight and it freaks me out!!). We looked everywhere in that room for three straight hours. We called in the maid service to help us look, I cried openly at the registration desk...it was a real barrel of laughs. We kept looking for the ring until it was absolutely time to take a shower and get to the ceremony. And it was at that moment that Robb found the ring in his suitcase, mysteriously buried beneath a pile of clothes. With HUGE relief, we quickly got ready for the wedding, but in our furious hours-long search for the ring, we never got a chance to wrap their gift--which was a mortar and pestle off the registry along with some plastic veggie keepers (you know, like the plastic thing that looks like an onion and you twist it open and put a cut onion in it?). I'm sure Zack and Sara are very sad not to have received that AMAZING gift. We wound up lugging this gift around SoCal and then brought it back to New York, whereupon I declared the gift to be so utterly lame that I couldn't stand to mail it. And then we decided to make them a quilt.

From the beginning, the deal was that this would not be something that I made and Robb signed the card. We would make it together--as in we would BOTH cut the fabric and I would teach him how to sew. And so we picked out a pattern (the Four-Patch Comfort in Quilting for Peace--a book that I had edited, in fact!), bought our fabric (in blues and whites, which were their wedding colors), and got to cutting.

And cutting. And cutting. The quilt had 224 four-inch squares that needed to be cut out one by one before being pieced together one row at a time.

Here's me after the first row of squares had been chain-pieced together, getting ready to trim the thread between each square. (Can you tell I was excited about this part?)

Once we finished piecing together all of the squares, I embroidered their initials in the corner. We then put together a piece of blue fabric for the backing, sandwiched some batting between the front and back, and then tied a knot at every single intersecting point of the quilt with blue perle cotton. I recognize that this sounds like a pain in the butt and that it would have been easier and faster to buy a walking foot for the sewing machine and quilt the blanket mechanically, but there is something so un-intimidating about tying knot after knot after knot. Anyone can tie a knot (or 100 knots), you know? And it keeps the blanket nice and airy--I never like quilts that feel all stiff with stitches.

The quilt then sat in this state for quite some time as I pondered how one actually binds a quilt. The directions in the book were good, but quite frankly I was scared. They kept mentioning things about "mitered corners" and traditional bindings versus mock bindings, and it was all very intimidating. Then a few weeks ago, my mind somehow finally ready for the challenge, I just sat down and did it in one night. Robb was at work and got a text from me that said something along the lines of "I'm finishing it! And I'm doing it alone." It all felt very dramatic. As it should when you've spent ten months working on something and the end is finally in sight.

And here is me mitering my first ever corner. Folding up the binding at a 45-degree angle.
Then folding it down, pinning it in place and backstitching at the corner.

And then continuing to stitch the binding in place 1/4" from the edge until I got to the next corner. (And trying not to let the maracas get in the way...yup, still haven't moved them.)

And when it was done, it was prettier than I could have imagined. I still laugh when I look at it, seeing how the pattern suddenly switches at one end from perfect diagonal lines of brown, white and blue to sort of a V-shape--that's where we sewed a row to the quilt the wrong way and decided it was too annoying to take it out. I look at that and think how happy I am that we made something pretty and imperfect for Zack and Sara. I love that the mistakes in the quilt make it more interesting, even better. And that there is a story behind this quilt. All of which, of course, makes for a simple and potent metaphor and meditation on love. I hope that the quilt brings them peace and happy moments and that every time they look at it, they feel support from friends and good wishes.

I also wanted to include this last photo because the wind blew the quilt up and revealed our ghost-town-esque Knott's Berry Farm falling apart fossil of a table. Now THAT'S pretty.

What? I couldn't leave it on too sappy of a note!

Sunday, 7:49 pm

As I write this, the church bells from the cathedral down the street are chiming. I can quite vividly imagine what the laundry lines look like strung between the 2 and 3 story houses of my neighborhood, and the deep blue of the sky behind the chromatic socks and undergarments. (I have a strong suspicion that the old Polish ladies of my neighborhood amuse themselves by hanging their laundry in a gradation of colors which, when assembled, become lovely works of art.) The fireflies will be out soon; I saw my first of the season on Friday night. The mosquitoes, unfortunately, precede them. Robb has just gone off to work. And in this nearly perfect summertime moment I am thinking to myself, damn, the last few days have been really really nice.


On Thursday night, I impulsively decided on the walk home that I must make Mario Batali's Pappardelle with Peas. This is a recipe that I first saw on Luisa's food blog, The Wednesday Chef, and have made a number of times since then. In fact, the recipe lives on our refrigerator door and is warped with water stains and full of scribbles, having occasionally been used as scrap paper for jotting down phone numbers. It is, in fact, the only recipe that has a permanent place on our refrigerator door, which says a lot. Fresh pappardelle makes the dish rich and satisfying, while the macerated peas sauteed with onions and honey (oh my God yum) make the overall effect light and summery. I forgot to buy mint but had some fresh arugula from the garden, so instead of going sweet and tangy I went fresh and spicy with the garnish. I also had some ricotta on hand and decided a nice little gloop would be a lovely twist on the original. Is there any occasion when a gloop of ricotta doesn't make something better?


On Friday night, I was honored to have the company of Miss Julie, who offered to help me finish the one task left over from wedding craft day last weekend. The streamers! Julie hadn't sewn a stitch since junior high school home ec and asked specifically for a refresher course. And what's a better project in which to learn than stitching together hundreds of triangular pieces of fabric to make a banner?


Julie took to the machine like a whirling dervish, stopping only when the bobbin was fussy or something got snagged (which would cause her to leap from the chair and declare "I broke it! I broke it!", much to my amusement.) While Julie sewed, I made sure that our wine glasses were full.

And she kept on stitching until her hot pink sandals and blue toenails were covered in little triangles of fabric.


And all the while I really had nothing to do. So I talked her ear off and looped the sewn streamers up around the room and took still life photos. I must say, I particularly like this one. It's a photo of my grandparents just after they were married, with the streamers from my own wedding hanging next to them. I really do love it when the past and the present intertwine.


In between sewing, Julie and I feasted on awesome food. We made a big salad using greens from the garden. (This here's a particularly robust head of romaine we ate.) And Julie taught me how to make a classic vinagarette. You see, I'd always understood the basic ingredients--olive oil, balsamic, garlic and dijon mustard--but I didn't understand the quantities. The trick, it seems, is to put in much more mustard than you would think, which gives it a deliciously sludge-like quality. And always use fresh garlic. I'm often hesitant to eat raw garlic, but somehow in a salad setting it comes across as spicy and zingy and not at all overpowering. So basically, on Friday night I totally scored--Julie came over and finished off my wedding crafting AND taught me how to make kick-ass salad dressing (which I went on to make again both Saturday and Sunday).


Today, Robb and I tackled the tomato plants. They are growing at an alarming rate and are on the verge of becoming out of control. Last year we really let things go to hell. You see, we didn't really make sure the tomatoes were thoroughly staked until they had fruit, and at that point, you can't prop up something so unweildy and heavy. Both Robb and I took turns "wrestling" last year's tomato plants. We'd go through an entire spool of twine, thinking we finally had them under control, only to watch all of the bushes collapse on top of each other in a big mangled mess. So this year, we've got the supports in place, the twine is already twined, the dowels are dug in deep, and we are ready for tomato season. (We think.)

Which, according to these flowers that appeared last week, is upon us.

Finally, I'd like to give this cucumber plant a special mention. At this point in a cucumber plant's life, it develops these shoots that are fuzzy and sticky and whose sole purpose is to latch onto a structure in order to hold up the plant. No joke, about 20 minutes after I put a cage around this plant today, a tendril had reached up and wrapped itself around one of the cage's bars. Personally, I think that's kind of spooky. I nominate cucumbers as the weirdest plants in the garden.

But really, I just wanted to include a photo of the gnome.

All in all, a stupendous few days. This is, in my opinion, the epitome of how summer should feel.

Official Wedding Craft Day

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Since the day Robb and I got engaged, people have been asking us if there is anything that they can do to help. Loved ones, dear friends, drunk strangers in bars...you name it. People find out that you're getting married and something in them A) knows that you're probably in way over your head, and B) wants to pitch in and help. I don't know what this phenomenon is. Let's call it the "spirit of the barn-raising."

To tell you the truth, over the course of this year-and-a-half long engagement, I could rarely think of anything that I needed these good-hearted people to do. I'm a terrible delegator, and everything on my to-do list included things like pick out cake designs or collect 100 antique bottles. A few times I had to fight the urge to answer, "would you like to plan my entire wedding? Because that would be very helpful." It wasn't until it came time to make wedding crafts that it finally became clear how to put these lovely people to work. Which culminated in yesterday's official Wedding Craft Day Barbecue and World Cup Viewing.

Here's the deal: Robb and I decided that we wanted to make fabric napkins, fabric triangle streamers, and seed packets to give away as favors. (Mercifully, candle-making was dropped...what a pain in the arse that is.) We bought all the materials, picked our fabrics, assembled our tools and rolled up our sleeves...and then suddenly we felt very tired. And overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the whole thing. Making ten napkins is one thing. But making 115? That's quite another. And, well, that's when we decided to take up all those offers of help that we'd been showered with over the last year. We dialed up our kick-ass Brooklyn-based wedding party and bribed them with barbecue in exchange for them to come over and rescue us from the craft-a-lanche that we had brought onto ourselves.

What we did was break it down into stations. Julie arrived first and therefore claimed the position of "ironer," as she could set the ironing board real low, sit on the ground, and park it right in front of the US vs. England World Cup game. Kelly took on the job of "fabric marker," which is really a terrible job. It involves crawling around on your hands and knees with a steel T-bar ruler and a piece of chalk and marking out 100+ 14-inch squares. Morgan heroically took to the rotary cutter with its pinking sheer attachment, which started to go dull on us around the 19th yard. Kate became our official napkin ironer-and-folder and set up station next to Morgan on the floor. Here is a montage of Kate folding a napkin!

Meanwhile, Chris was busy sorting seeds. Since Robb and I love to garden, we decided to make little packets of seeds to give away as favors. We designed labels for them (which look oddly like Monopoly cards...oops) and cut them out. After some confusion about what the hell we were doing, Chris, Robb, Nick, and Julie stuffed 100-something glasine envelopes with tiny little tomato or pepper or sunflower seeds. Incidentally, due to aforementioned confusion, some gardeners may "think" they're planting a habanero pepper, but instead find that they are growing an heirloom tomato plant. We're calling it "Surprise Garden!"

Once the seeds were stuffed in their envelopes, Kelly took the helm at the sewing machine, stitching the envelopes to their cardstock backing.

I think Kelly REALLY liked this job. (Also, why do I keep the maracas behind the sewing machine? I've really got to find a better place for them.)

We chain pieced all of the seed packets, not cutting the strand between each packet until they were all sewn together. Which makes the whole thing go really fast, plus means that you get to hold up a cool strand of seed packets and wave it around in the air once you're done.


At some point we all started to lose our minds a little bit. Here is Morgan wrapped in the very last length of fabric. This was after about 5 straight hours of cutting.

And some of us (read: me) had the goddamnit in our eyes when the rotary cutter blade went dull and would no longer cleanly cut through a piece of fabric, no matter how hard you pressed down. This is me at 9pm, knowing that I should stop cutting, yet unable to stop. My mouth is smiling, but my eyes are not.

At the end of the day, what we wound up with was absolutley beautiful. And done in one day rather than in a series of weekends and weeknights where Robb and I would surely wind up cursing and throwing things at each other, wondering why-oh-why we took on this much work.


The napkins are made from the floral prints in the Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley fabric line. I thought it would be hard to pick out fabric for our napkins, but the moment I walked into Purl Soho, my eye went to this range of fabric. Nothing else could even come close. It had all the bright summer colors, the hint of country without being gaggy. It feels like classic Americana with a fresh, modern palette. Not to mention--and yes, this part is a little cheesy--I love that the name of the fabric has the word "hope" in it. For what is more hopeful than a wedding?


I loved this fabric so much, in fact, that we decided to scan the fabric and use it as a design element on the seed packets...like fancy old-timey Monopoly cards? Each card, it's important to note, comes with a little story on the backside about why we like this variety so much as well as growing instructions. We will leave no gardeners in the dark!


And you know what? I think that people had fun at craft day! And further to that, I almost suspect that people were glad to help. And that when they come to our wedding, they will see the napkins and they will see the seed cards and they'll see the streamers and think, right, I MADE that. In my opinion, days like this add another layer of enjoyment to it all--to my appreciation of these great friendships, to the loveliness of the finished products, and to the sensation that we all, as a community, made something together. And that is a pretty good feeling.

Garden Time!

So where the heck have I been? It's been nearly two weeks since the county fair! Well, truth be told, I have been so busy knitting myself pretty that I haven't had time to post about it. And to be more accurate, I've been crafting my impending wedding pretty. MANY many blog posts to come on that topic in the near future. In the meantime, I offer you this photo which I think is a metaphor for my recent state of mind: wedding planning book (a moleskine notebook with fabric sewn across the front) and chips and salsa (stress eating!).

But I've ALSO been busy gardening myself pretty. Folks, it is officially that time of year. And I am happy to report that our plants are safely in the ground. Heck yeah! In honor of the amazingly lovely plants we dropped in the yard weekend before last, I thought I'd show you a photo montage, walking you through the life of a plant from seed to ground.

The life of every plant begins with me stabbing the bottom of a plastic dollar-store cup with a steak knife. The cup needs drain holes, and in my opinion (or rather, kitchen) there is no better plastic-stabbing tool than a steak knife. If you use the really really cheap and flimsy plastic cups, a steak knife can stab through three at a time!


Next you make a mess in your living room. You can see how carefully I filled the cups with soil. Also, a quick note about soil: many gardening enthusiasts believe that you need to start your seeds in "seed starting formula," or in some fancy peat moss sponge like thing. While I'm sure that these things are really great, Robb and I are sort of believers in just filling cups with dirt and putting seeds in them. They seem to grow, so, um, that's what we do. We are simple people! But if you have had a different experience, won't you share it in the comments section?


Then you realize you ruined your nails.


I planted all of the onions this year while watching the closing ceremonies of the Olympics on February 28. It was awesome! I love it when TV is on that you feel like you should be watching, but you don't really have to watch that closely, so it's just on in the background and you do other stuff.

And then I put the onions in the windowsill of our bedroom. There's probably some wiccan lore that says it's bad juju to grow onions right next to your bed, but so far we haven't felt the negative effects. Fingers crossed! By the way, I love the contrast here of future spring veggies and snowy curbs.


A few days later, the seeds did this! Do you see the little sprouts shooting up? There is nothing more beautiful than the miracle of life bursting from a dollar-store cup.


And a few weeks later they had done this! (Note that the snow had melted. Seasons are-a-changing right before your eyes...)

And about two and a half months later, we were ready to put our plants in the ground. Did I mention that we'd planted just a few more in the meantime? Ahem: 4 kinds of lettuce and arugula, 16 various tomato plants (I went overboard), carrots, broccoli, approximately one million hot and sweet peppers (Robb's absolute favorite), about a dozen kinds of flowers, peas, corn, cucumber, watermelon, sage, spearmint, basil, thyme, dill. Am I forgetting anything? I don't know! Probably.


The little popsicle sticks in each container helped us figure out what the heck was what.


Robb's peppers were very excited to go in the ground on this sunny day. (In this photo, I feel like they each have a very distinct individual personality. I sort of want to put googly eyes on them and do a stop-animation movie.)


This delicate little hollyhock was also excited to be planted. Nervous, but excited.

(Okay, okay...I'm done giving personality attributes to the plants now.)


We drew out a very professional-looking map of where everything would go.


Robb cut some stuff with scary power tool saws. (I held down the lattice and tried to cover my face from flying bits. I am not really a power tool kind of girl. Too much shrapnel! Who wants face splinters!?!?)


And then we started to put the little plant-a-roonies in the ground. This basil plant came out of its container particularly nicely. (Sidenote: the next day it got half dug up by squirrels! It was a near-death situation. A close call, but the basil plant is now recovering nicely.)


And finally, Robb was kind enough to document me planting the first tomato of the season. Here I am, stoically posing with my trowel and cup.


Digging the hole.


Elation!