Inexperienced needs help with proposing to girlfriend!!
 

I hope I am posting this thread in the proper place. I am planning on proposing to my girlfriend around Christmas time and finally came up with the perfect idea. She has recently become a quilting enthusiast and has even bought her own machine. I want to make a quilt that pops the question, "will you marry me?" Although I have experienced quilters in my family that could help me, I'm hesitant to ask their opinion for fear they wouldn't be able to keep it a secret. That's why I'm here...

Is it possible to make a quilt with writing in it? I want the quilt to have a nautical theme, and be fairly large. Is it possible to sew words on that are made out of fabric? Or would it be better to quilt the words in with just the thread?

I have no experience quilting myself; however, I would like to do as much of it myself as I can. I would of course have the watchful eye of an experienced quilter to guide me so I don't completely mess it up.

I'm curious if anyone can tell me if this is a feasible idea, and if there are any internet resources that could help me as well.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

What a cool idea! You could get the words embroidered on fabric or you could get them appliqued on. You can add iron on photos of the two of you. You can do any pattern with nautical fabric so you would be able to use an easier pattern. A great way to keep the secret is to hire someone here on the board to do embroidery with the question. Then you can work on piecing the top of the quilt with a relative, not revealing the proposal block until you are nearly done piecing the top (just letting the quilter who is helping know what size block will be added.

I hope she says Yes!

Do you know anyone with the quilting software Electric Quilt 7? They have block patterns in there that are letters. If you make the blocks large enough they shouldn't be too hard to sew. I used them to make a logo/banner for my quilting business Silver Needle Stitching.

You can applique the words using steam-a-seam ... it's a product that you iron onto the fabric, cut out your letters, then peel off some paper and press those letters on where you want. If you want it to last well, then you do a satin stitch with your machine, around the edges of those letters.

Another way to do the letters that to me would be a very easy way for a beginning sewer, which it seems you are telling us that you are ......... create the words along with the whole quilt design in a grid pattern using graph paper ... then use that grid to cut out blocks accordingly, in the different colours that you want. You can create angles by using what we call HSTs (half square triangles)

Those blocks can be any size .... 2x2", 3x3" etc ... all depending on how big you want your quilt to be! You'll be sewing 1/4" seams, so each block will end up being 1/2" smaller with the seams.

Here's a link to a quilt I did ... all done in the way I have explained to you. HOpefully it will help give you a visual, and see how the HSTs work into the design ... also a few QSTs (quarter square triangles) ....
http://www.quiltingboard.com/picture...r-t136789.html

Another option, as mentioned is embroidery ... someone who has an embroidery machine could sew/write your message out and then you could sew that into your quilt.

If you would like to applique the letters here is a link that may help. http://www.ehow.com/way_5402953_inst...e-letters.html Also there is several places you can do the letters in the block, just do a google on quilt block alphabet.

The quickest way would be to embroider.... lots of people here would help with that if you didn't have access to an embroidery machine. Or you could do it by hand.... lots of options..

Lucky girl!

I think embroidering the words by hand would be simple and very effective...I'd be mush over the thought of you hand stitching it for me!

You could do a Sudoku quilt. Put the letters in some of the blocks. She would wonder why some blocks had letters and others didn't. She would have to start reading and then it would dawn on her. The letters for the words could be every which way. Good luck with this project. I'm sure you'll figure out the perfect solution.

Maybe you can find a quilt shop near you? I bet ladies in there would fall over themselves trying to help you with such a neat project!

There are alphabet quilt blocks you could make for the wording. Just google it & it should take you to the sites. Also you could do as QuiltE said with the steam-a-seam & make your own letters. Another cute idea would to make one of the blocks into an envelope. To find that block, go to you tube & put in envelope blocks. There will be tutorials on how to make them. They are really cute & I made one into a ring barer pillow for my grandsons wedding. When you open the envelope, you could have the ring tied to a ribbon in the envelope as I did for the pillow.