The Double Wedding Ring Quilt

I’ve been a quilter for 25 years. With that said, at year five my husband informed me that he wants a Double Wedding Ring quilt. (Yeah, don’t we all.) Around that time we took the first of MANY trips to Shipshewana in Indiana, discovering amazing quilts, quilters and FABRIC. It was there, at Yoders that we purchased our first group of Asian fabrics.

This was only the beginning.

Around 2014, I decided it was time to get started. I bought the Accuquilt dies to cut the pieces, as cutting them myself seemed like the worst part. (It wasn’t.) It was a good investment and saved me hours of intense cutting. After the pieces for the arcs were cut, I started putting them together and they were just lovely. He was happy, I was happy. Then I put it all away because I hadn’t sewn curves yet and didn’t want to jump all in at that point. And I hadn’t gotten a background fabric yet, so stopping wasn’t unreasonable.

In 2017 we went to Shipshewana again and I chose a background. A dark navy Grunge, by Moda. I wasn’t sure how much to buy, as I didn’t really have an entire pattern, so we basically bought the bolt. Yes, we did. The project was put back into the basket and I tried to ignore it. But the husband asked about it several times each year.

Two years ago I told him that I’d have it done for our 40th anniversary. It was over two years away, I could work on it here and there and get it done, right?

So, year one passes by without taking it out of the basket. Early this year, four months before this fortieth anniversary, he mentions it and asked if I’d have it done in time. WHAT was I thinking, giving myself a deadline? I said I’d really try. That’s when the “fun” began. (The photos in this post were the beginning of this sewing process through the end.)

I decided to have this queen size quilt machine quilted with a longarm at my LQS. I chose navy thread and a heart design. It would have been nice to custom quilt it, but it is huge and there was just no way.

The navy thread was a good choice in my opinion. Having a little bit of dark thread on the lighter fabrics bothers me way less than light thread on all the navy fabric.

Making bias binding was really much simpler than I remember from the early days. Putting it on by machine wasn’t even horrible. I had found a video that helped me with those inward “corners.” Bias binding is definitely my new friend.

I clipped the binding down with my five clips and started sewing it down. I have not sewn a binding by hand in nine years. I only know this because the last time I did it, it was on a small wall hanging given to a friend when she moved.

I was quite surprised at how relaxing I found this process. I could only sew it down for about 45 minutes at a time. Sore hands and finger issues must not be ignored. It took about a week. The bias binding just hugged the curves and the end result was a winner.