The Christmas Quilt Complete

Last night I finished putting the hanging sleeve on the Christmas quilt - but I took these photos almost two weeks ago in the foyer on a sunnier day.

The poinsettia and swags I thought of appliqueing are quilted on instead.  The Right Hand of Friendship stars got some echo lines.  I used a gold colored thread instead of my usual matching or blending colors for all the quilting on the colored areas.

The Glorified Nine Patches are quilted with echoed curves and a small feather in the center square.  The negative space is feathered on the inside of the swags, while the outer areas got lines 1/4 inch apart.

Somehow, I managed to get a couple of photos of the quilt on the floor without any cat models.

It's ready to hang on the dining room wall in a month. But it's not actually finished until I put a label on it. Dorry came up with great ideas for names. I think I might work the "friendship" part of the star block's name into one of them.

Quilting for Christmas

I think it's time to prove I'm still working on this Christmas quilt - only a couple more days of quilting to do.

Back to Christmas

The last border went on this quilt a couple of days ago.  I finally took a photo this morning - the light again does not do justice to the fabrics -

Now I'm working on whether to fill the white space with quilting, or to add some appliqued poinsettia blossoms.  I printed three in draft mode on paper and pinned  them on the quilt on the design wall for scale -

 

They would be connected in the quilting with a swag, but I think they'd need to be bigger to look like they belong.  There would be a dozen of them.

 Hmmm!  At least, in my second photo since I was closer the flash did a better job and shows the fabric colors a little truer to reality.

The edges of Christmas

No longer Christmas in July, I'm still working on the quilt.  There is a lot of piecing for the main border.  I slapped the quilt on the design wall so the effect is visible on the left side - but it's not all straight and smooth.

Some of the nine-patches are set with their triangles, but in the photo, many are just laid out in position ready for piecing. The little red and green squares are in sets of four red and five green, waiting for their turn.

a brighter look

I finished the four central setting blocks for this Christmas quilt.  I took the picture just now and it was a little dark, like the last one I posted.  So I brightened it up to show the fabrics a little closer to reality.

I've pieced the diagonal rows.  For the photo, I overlapped the seam allowances (where I will sew the rows together) in order to show the circle created by the Glorified Nine Patch blocks. Sewing these curves in a nine inch block was nice and easy.

I thought I knew what I was going to do in the setting triangles.  But I'm re-thinking my design.  I had not originally planned on open spaces for fancy quilting.  But maybe I really want fancy quilting after all.

More Christmas

Yesterday I finished up the star blocks for this quilt -

Dorry asked about my fabric usage - there is no system.  As I often do, I cut numbers of pieces from a given fabric randomly depending on the length of the strip I cut.  Some fabrics are used in one block, some are used in three or four.  No two stars are identical, but some have three fabrics in common. 

Now I have to try stitching one of my alternate blocks together, and figure out fabric for the borders.  I may not have what I want on hand and this was supposed to be a way to use up fabrics, not an excuse to buy more.  But when I buy I don't usually buy enough for borders and backs and do wind up spending new money.  This won't be a huge quilt - maybe 50x50 inches, so it won't be too much fabric.

Christmas in July

I started a new quilt a couple of days ago.  Norris saw the block on the right and immediately recognized this was a Christmas quilt.  It will be a medium sized wall quilt for our dining room.

The block is one from the Civil War block of the Week series, Right Hand of Friendship, which was week 43, late October last year.  When I made the block for Roger and Laurie's quilt, I commented it would make a great scrappy quilt.  So I'm making a scrappy quilt with it now, though I'm going to use the same background swirly green and white print for all 9 star blocks to unify them. And I'm making it at 9 inches so the cutting math is far more standard than when we made all the blocks at 8 inches for that series.

I have a plan to use a block I've never made before for the alternates in my on-point setting.     Accidentally and on purpose, I managed to collect a lot of these themed prints over the years I've been quilting.  I made one quilt probably 10 years ago that is too simple a design for my current taste and abilities. And then, while working on these stars, I chose several prints from my collection that are not "Christmas" prints - so it's not going to make much room in the fabric drawer for anything new. I'll still have enough Christmas prints when I'm done to make a king sized quilt I think.

The Christmas fabrics obviously have some aging on them.  The current Christmas prints all seem to use a yellow green that I'm not crazy about.  I prefer my muted blue-greens and sage greens so it's just as well I bought them when I did.