The planning process

The first double wedding ring quilt (for the future in-laws) wasn't really planned. I bought some blue fabrics that I thought might look good together and found the template -- then started cutting and piecing without knowing who or what the quilt was really for. I just knew I really wanted to make a DWR quilt!

Then the cut fabric sat in a box for a few months while college and moving took over my life. After starting work and not having homework take up ALL of my time, I pulled the box out and wondered what I could do with the quilt. When my fiance made a remark about turning 25 next year, I realized his parent's 25th anniversary was coming up. Quilt recipient problem solved! Good thing his mom likes blue. :)

But I knew that I wanted to put a little more thought into our DWR quilt, and make it 'ours' somehow. We're both foresters, so natural colors were a big deal; we decided our wedding colors would be brown and green, so that's how the quilt colors were chosen. I dragged dear fiance to the fabric store, and surprisingly, he really enjoyed being part of the fabric selection process. He told me which patterns and colors he liked and was honest when the fabrics just didn't 'go' together. What a guy!

I sketched up two choices in a watercolor book and showed my guy what we could do pattern-wise. Here's the page:

On the left, the brown and green circles get dark and light at different 'intersections'; one's dark over the other color's light arc. The right shows the circles being light and dark at the same intersection. My fiance and I both liked the left more because it seemed to give it more depth. Lighter colors depict objects further away while closer objects are darker; this picture of the Great Smoky Mountains is a perfect example:

So by making the four-patch the darker green or brown color, it will make the quilt look like some rings 'go over' others.

The quilting in the center of the white spaces will be either different leaves (yellow-poplar, red maple, quaking aspen, etc.) or a tree template I've found:

I'm not sure yet.