The Wedding Quilt

Well, one of my projects for the wedding was a surprise - for everyone except me. I know it's tradition to exchange gifts between the bride and groom for the wedding, so I wanted to do something special. Mr. Gnomemade got me a great gift that arrived before the wedding - a Le Creuset lasagna pan. It was too heavy and too much a logistical nightmare for him to get it to Williamsburg, but I was able to transport his gift!

For months I'd been working secretly - when he was at work, at church, etc. - to make him a quilt. He'd been asking ever since I started quilting when I was going to make him one, so I figured there would be no better time to! He walked in a couple of times while I was working on it, so I was certain he knew what I was up to and was just sparing my feelings.

But, turns out he had no clue. So, on our wedding day, he opened my gift and found this...

Front of the quilt


Detail of front

Back of quilt

The colors are a little bit off - it was sunny out taking the photos, but I found lots of fabrics that are his favorite colors - blues, greens and browns. I actually had been collecting them for several years now. Some of the backing is leftover fabric I had from a Williamsburg quilt I made for another friend's wedding.

Our Winner

Where did I go? How is it the beginning of August already and I didn't even post the winner of my blog giveaway? So sorry about that.

I asked the Random Number Generator (aka Mr. Gnomemade) to choose.

So congratulations to...Megan!

I've e-mailed you to get your address. Thanks to everyone for participating!

The Wedding Day...

Our big day was great. We had a wonderful time with our family and friends. It was an amazing day (an amazing weekend all together), and made so special by being surrounded by everyone we love. We really wanted a weekend where we could visit with our guests, and I hope they walked away saying we did. With just over 100 people in attendance, Mr. Gnomemade and I did our best to chat with everyone that day, and throughout the weekend. We really were humbled by how far our friends and family were willing to travel to be with us - from New York, Rhode Island, Boston, Orlando, etc.

The morning of the wedding was spent prepping. The girls met in the bridal suite and had their hair and make-up done. The boys went out to lunch and then spent about 20 minutes putting on their suits. Mr. Gnomemade and I met up in the bridal suite just ourselves, and then we headed out for some photos. (We wanted to get our photos done beforehand so we could enjoy our entire reception and mingle with our guests). Our photographer was wonderful and willing to trek around campus with us - we're still waiting on those photos to arrive, so what you'll see here is those from our family and friends. And Mr. Gnomemade, as he carried a camera with him - the only groom I've ever seen do so.

Our day was hot...99 degrees out! We visited a couple spots on our campus where we met and were being married before meeting up with our families at the chapel. We did our formals together, and then it was time to say "I do." After the ceremony (which we don't have any really good candids of), all our guests assembled in the courtyard of the building where we were married for a group shot.

My maid and matron of honor and I after the ceremony.

Lots of hugging, and a couple more formals later, we were on our way to the reception. Our reception was held at a town hall type building. It had large picture windows and beautiful natural lighting which made it a wonderful location. Our caterer was great, the DJ phenomenal (we're pretty certain people liked her better than us!) and a good time was had by all.

Mr. Gnomemade and I really wanted a fun, relaxed wedding where our guests wouldn't stand on ceremony and really enjoy themselves and I like to think that's what they got. We were blown away by the number of people who could attend, but once there the dance floor was packed, people milled about socializing and everyone enjoyed the food. We were thrilled.

Mr. and Mrs. Gnomemade at the reception

Well, the reception went by like a whirlwind, but we did manage to make it to every table in the place - so we were happy. We were determined to give our guests individualized attention - I mean, how often do you get everyone you love in one room? There were toasts, pie (yes, pie - I don't do cake), lots of dancing, some games and well, a lot of heat (poor little AC just couldn't keep up with us!).

After the reception, the parents got together back at the hotel along with some of our guests, while we went out with our college/high school/work friends to a local tavern - which gave us a great chance to visit.

The next morning, it was up bright and early to greet our guests and bid them goodbye at a brunch. Then Mr. Gnomemade and I packed up and headed off to our car to drive back home, where we were greeted with this...

Thanks to my sister (who served as my maid of honor) and my close friend (my matron of honor) and their signfiicant others, our car got the royal treatment. The balloons and streamers were removed before hitting the highway, but we still got lots of honks (until it rained) for the messages written all over our windows!

So, there you have it - our wedding in a nutshell. I'll be back again soon to post some of the more personal touches we had at the wedding!

Mr. and Mrs. Gnomemade

Well...we did it! On June 5th we tied the knot in Williamsburg, VA. It was a great day filled with family and friends. The most memorable, or perhaps notable, part of the wedding - other than marrying my best friend? Well, it was hot. No, not just hot...it was HOT! Hot as in, on our wedding day we broke the record high temp by six degrees! Six degrees! The record high had been 93 degrees, and we hit 99 degrees. Thankfully, our chapel and our reception site were air conditioned, but even the A/C had a hard time keeping up.

I've shown a couple of friends photos from the wedding and they've kindly said we were "beaming" or "glowing." But really, we were melting. We took our photos outside before the ceremony, so we were hot! We were married on the college campus where we met, and it's gorgeous, so we couldn't resist.

All in all, we had a wonderful weekend celebrating. We had just over 100 guests, and we planned weekend long activities with the goal of being able to spend time with all of them.

The festivities started out really on Wednesday, when my matron of honor arrived, along with one set of wedding guests. We dined that night at one of our favorite Italian restaurants in town. It was a small crowd, but the food, as always was tasty and it was nice to spend some time with my parents and matron of honor.


On Thursday, the future Mr. Gnomemade arrrived - he flew into town after working through Wednesday. We ran some errands and then the real fun began. Our families began to arrive and we had a great dinner at Pierce's BBQ. And then it was off to Bruster's for some tasty ice cream.

On Friday, the girls got their nails done and then Mr. Gnomemade and I took my aunt and uncle on a tour of the college campus. After braving the heat, we got changed and headed off for the rehearsal. Three run-throughs later, our officiant gave us the "all clear" and then it was off to the rehearsal dinner with our family and wedding party.

Our rehearsal dinner was held in a Colonial Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg. The food was fantastic, the atmosphere was wonderful and we were treated to strolling misnstrels and colonial traditions.

After that, we immediately met up with more friends and family in Merchant's Square where Mr. Gnomemade and I gave a ghost tour around the colonial village.

It was a busy week, and that was only the beginning. The next day, we got married! Now, I've already rambled on a bit, so I'll save all that info for a little bit later.

What A Month! And a Giveaway!

It's been almost exactly a month since my last post, and I'm not even sure where to begin! It's been a whirlwind of activity and fun, and only now do I feel like I'm coming up to breathe. So much has happened and I've enjoyed myself so greatly. Now, if I were to go into all of it here, I would be writing a blog that would span multiple pages, and that just seems like too much to read. So, I think I'll break it up over several blogs over the next few days to cover everything. Everything will include...

• The wedding - yes, I'm married now!
• All the wedding DIY projects I crazily committed to (and did manage to finish on deadline)
• The honeymoon to Disney World - so much fun
• Our sneak peek of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal in Orlando
• A fabulous shop hop where I bought way too much
• My personal Summer UFO challenge (and I'm off to a good start!)

But before I go into all that, I want to thank you in advance for reading all my forthcoming rambles with a giveaway (plust this is my 50th post, so it seems like a fun way to celebrate). What's up for grabs? An adorable bundle of three fat quarters. They're all a nice teal blue in color with a stripe and floral hiding underneat the top patterned fat quarter.

How do you win? Well, I thought you'd never ask! It's simple.

I will give you one entry for each of the three following items:

- Leave me a comment
(any comment will do, or if you need some direction, let me know what you want to hear about our wedding)

- Be follower of my blog
(leave me a comment saying you're a follower)

- Post about my giveaway on your blog
(Leave me a comment saying you did so. I'm excited to go check out your blogs, as it gives me incentive to visit your blog and add more blogs to my google reader)

Be sure to leave me a separate comment for each entry - it helps when trying to choose a winner!

I'll choose a random winner using my personal "Random Number Generator" (aka saying to the new-Mr. Gnomemade, "Sweetie, pick a number between 1 and xxx).

Giveaway is open until midnight (EST) on July 4th.
I'm more than happy to ship internationally too.

And Away We Go...

Well, it's finally here. After almost a month of preparation, the wedding day is only 5 days away! Eek! We're extremely excited here and looking forward to spending the weekend with our family and friends celebrating.

The fiancee and I are absolutely blown away by the number of friends and family who are willing to travel such a distance to spend the big day with us. And we can't wait to celebrate with every single one of them.

I head out of town tomorrow morning, with a car packed full of wedding goodies - including my dress - to make the trip up to Williamsburg. The fiancee will join me later, as he doesn't have the luxury of lots of vacation days like I do.

And so, as you might imagine, as I will be busy with other things in my life other than sewing and crafting, this blog will remain quiet for a bit. Promise to be back soon with some photos and to share all the fun projects we did for the wedding!

We Have a Winner!

Wow! 362 comments - that's so great! Thanks to everyone who stopped by my blog!


I'll get to the part everyone is curious about - the winner. I had the random number generator (the fiancee) choose a number between 1 and 362 and he chose 252 - so...congratulations to Sy! (I sent you an e-mail so be sure to get back to me with your address to send the fat quarters.)




I really enjoyed all of the advice everyone shared and appreciate all the lessons you were willing to offer me about married life. We definitely have a lot of great ideas to sift through and incorporate into our new life together (which will start in 16 days!) We also had some good laughs!

Once again, thanks for stopping by.