A Third Christmas Quilt

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a third layer cake of Christmas fabric although this fabric is fairly subtle at being Christmas fabric.  A few of the prints have candy canes and a few have holly in them but the rest are plaids, paisleys, dots, stars and florals.  I decided not to make present blocks this time, but I still wanted the same feel of ribbons and bows crisscrossing.  I came across this tutorial on The Arrowhead Quilt Block made Easy on susies-scraps.com.  I planned to follow the tutorial as written but when I was doing the first block I went from memory and instead of cutting the central strips 1.25" from the centre, I cut them 1.5" by mistake.  Since I didn't think to use test fabric, this became a "design choice" and all my blocks will now have to be cut at 1.5" since I need them all.  They look just fine to me.  Here are the first two blocks, one trimmed and one not along with the rest of the fabric paired up for the rest of the blocks.

I spun my seams so the blocks would lay nice and flat, but I'm not sure that this is going to help me when I go to sew the blocks to each other, but it looks nice and neat on the back.

I made the first two blocks on Friday and on Saturday while I was Skype sewing with my friend Marilyn, I got all the red blocks sewn together and pressed although they still need trimming.

On Sunday I got the first step done on all the blue and green blocks.  Since there will be no sashing between the 42 blocks, the quilt top will be 6 blocks by 7 and measure 43.5" x 50.75".  I will have to find some fabric to make a nice wide border on the quilt to make it a decent size or another layer cake to make twice as many blocks.  If anyone has some "Snowfall" or "Snowfall Woven" fabric by Minick and Simpson for Moda that they would like to part with, please let me know.  I found some on line but the shipping to Canada was double the cost of the fabric so not a reasonable option.

Sunday was also Worldwide Quilting Day!

Christmas Present Quilts

Since starting a Christmas Present Quilt about two weeks before Christmas seemed so appropriate, the week before Christmas I started a second Christmas Present Quilt using a different present block and made 25 blocks.  I had them sewn together into five columns so to finish the top all I had to do was sew the columns together with a bit of sashing using snowflake fabric of course.

Here is a close up of one of them.  I really like the darker prints.  This one I managed to almost line up the ribbon.

Others were less than stellar.  Someone must have been squeezing this one to try to find out what was inside.....

But I still love it.  It finished 68" long by 57.5" wide.  It will also be finished for next Christmas.  I am thinking I will have to make a third one so I have one to keep for myself!  I do actually have another layer cake of another line of Christmas Fabric.

Snow Day = Sew Day!

On Monday we had a second snow day in a row and I was able to Skype sew with my sewing buddy Marilyn.  What would be more appropriate to sew with on a snow day than snowflake fabric.  Before Christmas I had made 24 present blocks from a layer cake of Christmas fabric so I dug them out and made them into six giant 21.5" blocks of four presents each.  It's hard to see, but the white fabric is also snowflake fabric.

Yesterday I got the blocks sewn into rows as well as rows of sashing to go between them.  This afternoon, when coincidentally it started to snow again, I got the whole top sewn together into one piece.

The top is approximately 4' by 6'.  Perfect for one person to totally snuggle under or if you turn it sideways also perfect for a couple of people to use as a lap quilt.  Now I have no excuse to not have it quilted in time for gifting next Christmas.  I want to back it with either flannel or maybe even fleece which I have not tried before. Either way, I want it to be nice and snugly.