Wedding Bookshelf Quilt - Love in the Library

I made this quilt for my daughter-in-law as a wedding shower gift.  She loves to read and when I saw a bookcase quilt on Pinterest, I thought it would be perfect for her.  I started taking ideas from other quilts on how to incorporate some of the things she loves.  I knew I wanted it to have a contemporary feel, include some special pictures and dates and I wanted to use fabrics that included her wedding colors.  I asked my son to make up a few book titles that would be meaningful to both of them and include some special dates that I could embroider on the books.   

To make the construction manageable, I grouped the books into 20 -11" blocks. (4 blocks on each shelf).  Some have photos, some have leaning books and some just straight books.  

Before I started the blocks, I embroidered the titles on 7 of the books using an embroidery machine.  For the photos, I used the ink jet fabric from VV Prints.

I started with the plain blocks by sewing various color fabrics to 6 inch pieces of the background fabric.  Then I cut them in various widths from about ¾ inch to 2-1/2 inches to make the books.  Next I took the strips and sewed them together, arranging them so that they were different heights until they measured 11-1/2 inches across.  I found it was best to put a large book at the end of the block so there was room to trim to get the 11-1/2 inches.  Then I squared up the block to 11-1/2 inches.  

 Next I made the blocks with the leaning books.  I found a paper piecing pattern on-line that I adapted to adjust the angle so that they were all a little different.

For the photo blocks, I just bordered the picture to look like a frame and added books to each end.

Next I arranged 4 blocks across with 5 rows down.  I spent a lot of time moving the photo and book blocks around to get the arrangement I liked.

The rest was easy.  I added sashing for the shelves and then added a border on all sides.

I quilted it by stitching between the books and meandering in the border and open spaces in the bookcase.

This quilt was challenging for me but fun to make.  It turned out special just like my daughter-in-law.