Making Wedding presents for free

I adore weddings.
The simplest ones are the ones I love the best.
And I love reading about home-made-y things that were the perfect touch.
I blogged a few months ago about my nephew's wedding, where instead of gifts, the bride and groom sent out a knitting and crochet pattern with the invitations; the guests were asked for bunting triangles to be made in any colour or yarn, and these were hung to decorate the church and hall, but afterwards were sewn into blankets that were sent to a charity for refugees.

It is the thing that sticks in my mind the most.
Not the dress - although it was pretty, or the buffet - which was nice, or the first dance - which was simple and not showy.
The gentle thoughtfulness and sharing of their special day.

But one other thing sticks in my mind.

Because of the bunting request, we felt we could take part.

You see, so many times we receive a beautifully crafted wedding invitation: we've had a wooden fridge magnet one, a printed-on-a-tea-towel one, and several hand-made ones.

And my heart leaps then thuds sadly as I think about how much it would cost us to celebrate with the bride and groom...travel, accommodation, pet-sitting, and GIFT. (*I never stress about having a "new" outfit, as I always wear vintage/chazza anyway!!)

And we tick and return the 'sorry we can't be with you' card.

If you fall into the same or a similar place to me, then I have a solution for you - for the gift part,
anyway.
Why not do what I did for Gorgeous Daughter's special day?

After giving GD a strict budget for her wedding day, I knew I had no leftover cash for a gift.
I wanted to give them something handmade that they would keep forever.
I made them a handmade quilt.

But how I did it was actually very easy, and virtually free.

I started by taking a plain white King size duvet cover, and cutting right around the edge, taking the seams and fastenings off.
I pinned the fabric together around.

Then I measured the fabric across and down, and divided this into 5 each way.


I drew this on with a pencil, and cut out 25 squares.

I decided that I would make a motif to go on 13 of these squares, like this:

X o X o X
o X o X o
X o X o X
o X o X o
X o X o X

Every square I added wadding, and stitched around.

I then sorted through my fabric stash and chose a colour scheme.
I cut out diamond/rhombus shapes from paper, and tacked 18 of these onto cotton fabric.

These I stitched together in a design, and sewed onto a square.
Once I had appliquéd all the squares, I joined them together with strips I had made.

The quilt took me a month of evenings, and cost me nothing as I had all the things in my stash: you would need:
A King sized duvet cover
Scraps of cotton fabric in your colour scheme
Wadding
Thread.

This is one square of the finished quilt.

It is much loved and cherished.