Oh dear, I must really hang my head in shame on this one. It was started in January 2001 and remains a WIP, although with the best of intentions, I assure you.

'Round about the holidays in 2000, my brother and sister-in-law informed the family that their first-born and only son had become engaged. We were all exceedingly happy for him and, as he is my only nephew on my side of the family, I wanted to do something really special for him. I decided on a Double Wedding Ring quilt, eventhough I had never attempted one before. How difficult could it be (she asked foolishly)?

I did quite a bit of research on the process of creating a DWR: I wanted a DWR that had individual fabrics for the arcs but didn't want to work with all those little pieces. I definitely didn't want a one-piece arc ... that just seems so "wrong"! I finalized on the technique developed by John Flynn, which ingeniously creates true arcs with wedge-shaped pieces by using strip sets. Quite by circumstance, one of my local quilt stores had scheduled a class in exactly that method! I realized this was serendipitous and I ought to take advantage of it. Although a firm wedding date had not been set, I figured I might have at least a few months to get the quilt done.

I asked my sister-in-law what my nephew's favored colors were and much to my dismay, I found out that he was in a Goth phase (basic black) but that he did like red also. Well, there is NO WAY that I was going to make a black wedding quilt. I don't care how much the quilt is for the recipient, I just was NOT going to make a black wedding quilt! While working through several colorations, I decided on graduated arcs in 6 shades of red and 6 shades of black with a sparkle cream for the interior of the rings. I was thinking of perhaps quilting their intertwined intials in the center of the rings .. nice touch, huh?

As I worked on the rings, I began to see just how very pretty that combination of colors was. I attended the classes, had cut all the strips necessary, completed 10 rings, and had completed one column (or row, depending on how you hang it) of rings when my sister-in-law called the family to let us know that the engagement was off ... permanently. At that point, without the imminent deadline to spur me on, I let the Goth DWR project lapse. I put all the piece parts, the workbook and extra fabric in a cubby and put it away. The incentive to complete it just wasn't there anymore.

As of this writing, it is 2005; my nephew has remained single, although he has had relationships in the meantime. I feel very badly about the pseudo-wedding quilt: I designed the colors, the layout, the quilting all with him in mind. It would be terribly wrong to make it for anyone else. As the quilt has waited quietly in my sewing room, tucked away in a drawer, it has remained in the back of my mind. It finally occured to me (like .. duh!) that I don't have to think of this has his almost-wedding quilt. He never knew about it; the only people who did were my family (and Mr. Pirate won't remember it at all .. he has trouble remembering where he left his car keys). My daughters will remember when I start working on it again, but they can be trusted with not telling anyone. I will simply finish the quilt and give it to my nephew .... "just cuz". No mention of the history of the quilt but just a gift from a loving aunt.

Now ..... to find the time to get back to finishing the quilt! :-)

The John Flynn Method

To anyone interested, I heartily endorse the John Flynn method of doing a Double Wedding Ring. The arcs are created with straight cut strip sets, which are then adjusted to create the arc shape. It's still a lot of sewing BUT you are not dealing with all those individual wedges of fabric.

For *me*, this is a much easier method than using templates or (worse) cutting hundreds of wedge-shaped units to be stitched together. I doubt if it is any "better" than other methods .. it's just a different technique.

I didn't make all the strip sets/arcs that I need yet, as the second class was to show us how to combine the arcs, melons and center pieces to create the DWR block. So, what I did was to make sufficient arcs to do the class stuff. When I got back home, I finished up enough arcs, cut enough melons & centers to create the first column (from a total of 11 columns needed) of the quilt. The column has 10 rings.

This first picture is a progression for the graduated black arc ... going from left to right: step 1 goes from the strip set to sub-cutting, step 2 goes from the sub-cut strip set to the arc unit. You create the arc unit from the sub-cut strip set by essentially sewing 'darts' on each of the sub-cut seams. I also have graduated red arcs that aren't pictured here.

The 2nd picture is the block components: red & black arcs sewn to a melon to create a horizontal arc unit and a vertical arc unit; the center fabric piece. This 3rd picture shows the arcs and interior pieces.

The 4th (and last) picture is of the completed 1st column. The last DWR block unit is cut off, as I was standing outside the sewing room, taking the picture thru the window [grin] and my sewing machine cabinet was in the way. :-) I apologize for the lighting inconsistencies, but the sun was shining thru the other windows.

The construction sequence (in class) was somewhat disjoint, simply because our instructor wanted us to have enough components to be able to make something recognizable so that we could have the gratification of a completed unit. In reality, since we don't need to jump around make this, that and the other thing, we can get into a routine of making "just this one thing" and get rather streamlined about it.

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