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:

Deck the Halls Quilt Top Finished!

My Christmas quilt top is finished!  I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the entire quilt before Christmas, so I was happy to finish the main section on Christmas Eve - all that was left for the top was the borders, which I finally finished today (New Year's Eve).  I'm happy to report that this quilt top is my last finish of 2013!

Here it is:

It measures about 62" by 71 1/2"

Here are blocks 6-8:

I think the wreaths are my favorite.  I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed with the busyness of trying to meld different fabric lines.  This block only has Kate Spain fabrics (well, except for the little bows and the background).

 

The trees.  Have you noticed how every single block has a little pop of yellow?  Of course, I had to find a way to include the yellow here.

And finally, the cups.  I was a little annoyed at how much fabric was wasted in making these blocks, but I can totally understand the reasoning (no bias edges to sew).  And it was AWESOME making an entire quilt from a pattern and not having to do a bit of math by myself, so I'm not going to complain.  :)

Here is a shot on my design wall sewing room floor (hence the funky colors) of all the blocks sewn together.  Eek!  Almost there! 

I didn't have enough of any of my fabrics for the borders, so I made this pieced border using nearly all of my Kate Spain cuts and some more yellow.  I hope I don't regret putting a relatively skinny fussy cut/directional print on the very outside edge.  Hopefully it doesn't skew too much when it is quilted.  I really wanted to use those cups somewhere!

Looking at it now, I can see it's pretty busy.  I probably should have used more solid fabric, but I still LOVE it!  The colors are PERFECT!

I'm going to use my tone on tone (almost solid, right?) red and green deer/tree prints for the binding.

Now for the REAL dilemma.  BACKING!  I need your help!

I bought this flannel sheet set for super cheap at a yard sale a few months ago.  Apparently it was only used once.  Anyway.  I originally thought I could use it for the back, but now I'm not so sure.  I'm afraid the different red will clash horribly, and the color will show through the light background.  What do you think?

My second option is to use this kind of ugly (in my opinion) neutral yardage that I ended up using for my first skinny border when I completely ran out of background fabric:

OR I could piece together all the scraps from the quilt top with the neutral yardage for a scrappy pieced back:

What would you do???

And how would you quilt it?  I'm considering some "custom" quilting - something unique for each block, but I'm also leaning towards an all over pattern so as not to distract from the overall quilt design.  What do you think?  Even though Christmas is over, I'm not sick of this quilt quite yet.  I think I'll try to finish it in the next month or so and have it ready to go with PLENTY of time to spare for next Christmas.  :)

p.s. This pattern comes from Fat Quarter Shop's Deckade the Halls Quilt-Along. 

WIP: Deckade the Halls Blocks 1-5

I recently read a really good article about keeping things simple at Christmas time when you have young children (read it HERE).  This year I ended up choosing to take a break from making gifts, which freed me up to spend my sewing time sewing for ME.  It's been amazing.  After so much focus on my Etsy shop, I needed to sew something for myself.
Our trip to Las Vegas (see previous post HERE) was awesome!  While the hubby went to his training, I spent my days entering WAY too many giveaways for Sew Mama Sew giveaway day, and I made a lot of progress on my Deck the Halls quilt.

Here is the first block, Gingerbread Men:

I really love the fabrics I've been using, but some of them are a tad busy.  I've ended up using this yellow in every single block so far, just to try to balance the busyness out.

 Here I am all set up in the hotel room.  :)  It's a good thing the cleaning lady didn't come while I was gone for lunch.  That could have been a disaster.

SO much cutting!  I spent almost the whole first day cutting background pieces for the entire quilt.  I wanted to make sure I was going to have enough, and I barely made it - I did have to piece together a few scraps to get the last few tiny squares.  This isn't even all of it:

Progress shot.  I was having lots of fun!

 I finished the gingerbread men and these stars while still at the hotel.  I was about half way through with the ornaments too.  However, I came to realize that my "scant quarter inch" wasn't quite as scant as it was supposed to be.   All my blocks were coming out just barely too small!  Even though I have tested my quarter inch seam before and I use a quarter inch foot.  I've decided it was a combination of not being diligent enough with the quarter inch foot, using a soft padded ironing board in the hotel room, and using thicker thread than normal (oh yeah, and having to use 1 1/2 inch squares that were pieced together from scraps).  I've been working on it, and my blocks are getting better and better.  Whew!

Here are the ornament blocks I finished at home:

And the stocking blocks.  I bought the white mug fabric before I settled on a background fabric and originally decided not to use it at all in my quilt, but something made me change my mind.  I hope it doesn't stick out too badly!

And the present blocks.  Love the fabrics!

Here are all the blocks together so far.  Only three more to go!  

Note:  All of these blocks are from Fat Quarter Shop's Deckade the Halls quilt along that took place earlier this year. 

Linking up:

'Tis the Season!

I'm getting so excited for Christmas!  The hubby and I are taking a much needed mini vacation next week.  He has a training to attend for his job (in Las Vegas) and his boss has booked a super nice condo for us to stay in for 2 1/2 days.  We're going to drop the kids off at Grandmas and I'm going to pack my sewing machine!  While the hubby is at his training, I get to spend two ENTIRE days sewing without interruptions!  YAYAYAY!  And then we will get to hang out together at night - sans kids.  I've gotta say, I REALLY love my kids, but I think after this little break from them, I am going to love them so much more.  :)  Wanna see what I'm bringing to work on?  Well, okay.

Left to right:  Ho Ho Ho by Nancy Halverson (green and yellow) - picked up at my LQS; Hip Holiday by Josephine Kimberling (ornaments and trees); In From the Cold by Kate Spain (mittens, gingerbread men, and mugs)

 I used my gift certificate to the Intrepid Thread (the one I won from my One Block Wonder quilt top) to pick up some Christmas fabric!

I've been collecting the tutorials for Fat Quarter Shop's "Deckade The Halls" quilt all year and I've finally decided to jump in and do it!  This quilt is going to be for ME!  Everybody needs a fun quilt to pull out at Christmas time, right?  I really love these prints.  They may not necessarily go together, but I will find a way.  :)

This tan/cream flower print has been in my stash forever - I picked it up at a yard sale for SUPER cheap.  I have just enough to cover all the sashing and background in the quilt, so I've decided to make it work rather than buy 3 more yards of fabric...

I can't wait!

p.s.  I have updated my Etsy Shop to include a few fun Christmas items.  Check them out!