Blogger's Quilt Festival: Deck the Halls

Welcome, visitors from the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  And of course, welcome to all my regular readers!  You all are the best.  :)

It's finally time to share my finished "Deck the Halls" quilt!  Yay!  I had the top finished almost in time for Christmas last year, and now the whole thing is finished with plenty of time to be used all season long this year.  ;)  You all know how these things go, right?

So here is the story of this quilt.  Way back in November of last year, I won a gift card giveaway - one of the best kinds!  I decided it was high time to make something wholly for ME.  I had Christmas on the brain, so I ordered myself these adorable Christmas fabrics!  Everybody needs a Christmas quilt, right?  I thought so too.  I'd also had my eye on the Fat Quarter Shop's free "Deckade the Halls" quilt-along and on a whim decided to jump on board (check out the Flickr group HERE).  It was so much fun and I love how my quilt turned out!

Fabrics from left to right:  1-4 Kate Spain's "In from the Cold," 5-7 Josephine Kimberling's "Hip Holiday", 8-9 Nancy Halverson's "Ho Ho Ho."

And then something awesome happened.  My husband got assigned to go to a two day weekend workshop in Las Vegas and his boss agreed to let me come with him!  I don't know about you, but sometimes a break from real life (and kids, mostly kids - even though I love them to death) is JUST what we need.  So while the hubby spent his daytime hours at his workshop, I holed up in the hotel room with the laptop and the iPad and SEWED.  It was so awesome!  I got tons of stuff done.  :)

Anyway.  I managed to finish the entire quilt top by New Year's Eve.  And then I decided it was okay to table this quilt for awhile.  Well, a few weeks ago I pulled it out, made a back and quilted it.

For the back, I originally planned to use a flannel sheet I had picked up at a yard sale, but in the end I didn't love it enough to force myself to use it.  So I decided to piece together all of my leftovers from the quilt top (plus a larger cut I picked up after the top was finished).  With the help of some of my IG friends, I ended up arranging the randomly pieced blocks to looks like presents.  

 For the quilting, I first stitched in the ditch around every. single. block using a clear thread.  I wanted my blocks to pop and intended to do some tight free motion quilting in the background.  But when I asked the hubby for advice, I found out that he pretty much hates pebbles, swirls, stippling - anything that is not straight lines.  He insisted that I should quilt diagonal lines.  And even though it was WAY more work than simple FMQ would have been, I did.  I like that the crosshatching is nice and subtle, which is kind of what I was going for.

Here are a few close ups:

It felt a little weird photographing a Christmas quilt on the fall leaves, but you've got to admit that they make a gorgeous background, don't you?

The binding was also pieced together using two of the leftover fabrics.  Machine attached, hand finished.

I am entering this quilt into the Large Quilts category of Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Go check out the rest of the quilts here:

Quilt stats:

Started: November 2013

Finished: October 5, 2014

Fabrics:  Kate Spain's "In from the Cold,"  Josephine Kimberling's "Hip Holiday,"  Nancy Halverson's "Ho Ho Ho."  Background fabrics were yard sale finds/given to me by friends.

Batting:  Various scraps given to me by a friend and stitched together - I think they were Cotton/Poly 80/20

Finished size: 59" x 68" (3 inch shrinkage after washing)

Recipient:  ME!

Methods used:  Piecing, Straight Line Quilting (on my home machine)

Binding:  Machine stitched to front, hand stitched to back

All previous progress posts for this quilt can be found HERE.

Also, this was goal #1 on my Quarter 4 Finish Along list.  So, come January I'll be linking up here:

Finish-Along Quarter 4 Goals

It's time for the final Finish-Along Quarter of the year!  Yikes!

In the past, I have listed pretty much every possible project I have going in the hopes that at least a few of them will get finished.  This quarter is going to be different.  I have been turning down opportunities for extra projects for a while now because I have a whole bunch of projects with very specific deadlines already.  You know how it is with Christmas and all.  Plus, we are getting two new babies in the family this year, so I've got plenty to do!  This quarter I WILL finish everything on this list or BUST! 

Here we go:

1.  Deck the Halls Quilt

This one is actually essentially finished.  I put the last binding stitch on it yesterday while watching LDS General Conference.  Now I just need to give it a quick bath to wash away the marking lines I put on it, and take it out for a photo shoot!  Stay tuned for more on this one!

2.  Braden's Growth Chart

We're getting a new nephew in November!  We're so excited.  His Grandma ordered another Growth Chart from my Etsy shop and the Mom and Dad requested another BYU one to match his brother's.  It's about half way through quilting now.

3.  Braden's Stocking

I wanted to make the new baby something, but I know that he already has about a million quilts.  So, after consulting with the Mom-to-be, I decided to make him a Christmas stocking.  I found some red flannel houndstooth that matches his older brother's green flannel stocking perfectly. 

4 and 5.  Avonlea's Puff Quilt

Yay!  Not only are we getting a new nephew on one side of the family, but we're getting a new niece on the other!  We're really excited about all the new babies coming in the next few months.  This time mom requested a Puff quilt made from this Giggles fabric.  I think I might make another one while I'm at it to sell in the shop.  Because I love these things so much.  :)

6.  Jaxson's Cruiser Blvd Broken Herringbone Quilt

The boys will be turning 3 at the very beginning of December and we are planning on putting them in big boy beds then.  Wahoo!  We already have beds and mattresses (thanks to the help of their AWESOME grandparents).  The only thing left is new quilts for their new beds.  I've had these in progress (sort of) for quite awhile now (YIKES - I got this fabric LAST CHRISTMAS!), but finally made some headway on the first one.  Jaxson has claimed this one because it's green.  Luckily, Bronx loves blue so he'll get the other one.  :)  I just need to add borders to this one to make it bigger.  Broken Herringbone block tutorial found HERE.

7.  Bronx's Cruiser Blvd Jungle Path Quilt

Bronx's quilt is actually a big pile of cut strips right now, waiting to be pieced.  I'll be using THIS tutorial.

8.  Secret project for special family member

9.  More secret projects for a special family member

 

10.  Do. Good Stitches October Quilt

October is my month to receive Do.Good Stitches blocks from my group.  I'm asking for flying geese blocks in these colors.  I'm excited to try my hand at piecing together blocks of different sizes.  Hopefully I will have all of my blocks by November and can have my quilt completely finished before the quarter is over!

WHEW!  I better go get busy!
Linking up here: