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. 

'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!

One Block Wonder Quilt Top

I finished my One Block Wonder quilt!

I'm joining in the One Block Wonder Quilt-Along hosted by Jen at Quilter in the Closet.  Check out her blog for more information on how to make a quilt like this:

Basically, this quilt is made from a single fabric, strategically cut and sewn back together.  I cheated a little bit, because I didn't have any cuts of fabric on hand that were big enough.  So I used two similar fabrics from the same line.

First I made 14 hexagons from this African Mask fabric:

Before

After

Isn't amazing how much it changes?

Then I made 12 more hexagons using this African Patchwork cheater print:

Before

After

I did bend the "rules" a little bit on this one.  The book recommends staying away from fabrics with straight lines and angles, but I think some of the blocks turned out pretty cool.  Initially, there were a lot of blocks like the one in the middle that looks like it has a border, but I ended up changing the orientation of the triangles in a few blocks to get more variety.  There were SO many possibilities with this fabric - I wish I had taken more pictures for you...

When I had all my blocks ready, I mixed them all up and sewed them together!

I was going for a sort of gradual "black to white" look

Since I ended up using less than a yard of fabric total (as opposed to the 3 or 4 yards recommended for a full size quilt), and the fact that I cut my triangles smaller than the size given in the book (in order to get as many repeats as possible) my quilt top is pretty small.  About 20 x 24 with 24 total Hexies. 

 

Just a little glamour shot in our gorgeous fall back yard...

I'm really not sure what to do with it at this point.  I could add a border to it (I'm thinking a solid black border, then another border using leftovers from the same prints) and make it a throw quilt.  Or I could turn it into a big pillow.  I think I'm going to do something I rarely do - put this one aside for awhile and let it simmer while I think about what to do with it.  What do you think?

The black and gold gives it kind of a Halloween look, doesn't it?  Especially when you notice the block towards the bottom with the creepy eyes...   Happy October!

This was a really fun quilt to make and I would love to make another, larger one someday.  Thanks for the inspiration Jen!

Check out the link-up HERE.  It will be open until October 30th, and then VOTING BEGINS!  I can't wait to see what everyone else has come up with!

The Beginnings of a One Block Wonder

Have you heard about the One Block Wonder quilt along happening over at Quilter in the Closet?

When I first saw Jen's quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, I was floored!  The whole thing is made from ONE cut of fabric!   Seriously, you should check it out.  It's amazing.  Luckily, Jen got such a big response to her One Block Wonder quilt, that she decided to host a quilt-along!

I was pretty excited about it at first, but then realized that I might not be able to participate right now due to my current fabric diet.  This quilt requires a large amount of one single fabric.  Finally, I decided to go through my stash and see what I had that was at least a half yard and fit the design requirements.  This is what I came up with:

In the end, I let the Hubby pick for me and he picked the masks:

From that, I cut groups of 6 triangles from exactly the same spot in the print and started putting them together.  It works!  My cutting isn't perfect - I don't have the fancy ruler or pins called for in the book, but I think it's fine.  :)

All 14 hexies are ready for me to decide where to put them in my layout. Cool, huh?  And these all started out as one big cut of the same fabric.

Here's the thing - 14 hexies isn't really enough for a quilt.  Maybe a big pillow.  I'm thinking about making another set of hexies using the other African fabric from my first photo and mixing them in.  What do you think?

Time to vote!

Voting is up on the Something New Sampler Quilts!  Go check out the awesome finishes and vote for your favorite!  (Just remember to click on the button ABOVE the quilt you choose.)

Vote HERE.

If you missed it, click on the picture to get to my final post:

Something New: A Finished Valor Quilt

It's finished!  Thanks to those who have patiently stuck it out through my millions of posts on this project. :)  And welcome to any new visitors from Amy's link-up!

I put the final stitches on my Something New Sampler quilt last night.  I wasn't required to finish it completely in order to meet the deadline, but I was so close I decided just to push myself to finish.  Which I did - with one day to spare!

I'll be donating this quilt to the new Veterans Memorial Home that will be opening in my city soon.  I put a TON of time and effort into this quilt, so I feel a little sad giving it away, but I'm sure it will be well loved.  It helps to know that most of the fabric (and all of the batting) was donated to me by good friends who will be happy to hear that their kindness is being put to good use.  I know it is going to be very, very different from most of the quilts that are being donated, but I LOVE that I got to have the opportunity to try new things.  This quilt made it possible to try them out when otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered.  Amy's quilt-along was SO FUN!  I even tried lots of new quilting methods.  (For those who are curious, I added an update to THIS post on how the rest of my QAYG turned out.)

I tried to get some good pictures during my limited nap-time window.  I hope they do the quilt justice.  Here we go:

A couple close-ups.  The bright light outside really helped the quilting to show!

 I forgot to account for the wider seam allowance and squaring up that was going to happen when I attached the quilted sections, so some of my borders ended up a little wonky.  Oops.

I wanted to be as economical (and simple) as possible, so I bought a sheet to use for the backing and then did an easy fold over binding.  The sheet doesn't necessarily match all that white, but somehow I still think it works.  The backing is sewn down every 15 inches or so.  I didn't want to add too much more stitching to the front.  It's pretty loose, but I think it will hold up.  We'll have to see how it looks after being washed and dried.  I'll also be watching to see if those seams created from attaching the quilted blocks soften up at all.  EDIT:  After washing, the back still looks great.  I think it's going to be fine.

An obligatory bed shot, to prove how big it is:

And here are a few more, just for fun!

Quilt stats:

Started: January 2013

Finished: March 13, 2012

Fabrics:  Everything is from my stash.  Most of the fabrics I used were given to me by a friend (particularly the red stars and the blue stars used in each block).  The batting was also donated by a friend and pieced together.  The only thing I payed for was the white fabric, the backing, and the 2,500 or so yards of thread I went through (YIKES!)

Finished size: About 76 x 91 (before washing)

Recipient:  Utah State Veterans Home

Previous posts about individual blocks HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE

Previous post about quilting and QAYG method HERE 

The quilt is in the wash right now.   (Gotta get all those pencil markings off.)  Which means there will have to be a few more pictures once it comes out of the drier.  ;) 

EDIT:  It's washed and dried and is now crinkly!  I know there are lots of people who love the crinkly look but to be completely honest, I'm usually disappointed when I take my quilts out of the drier and the crinkliness has overwhelmed the intricate quilting designs.  I really love the way my quilts look BEFORE washing.  But then when you step back and look at the whole thing, it's still the same quilt. 

AFTER washing:

I'm linking up with Amy at The Cute Life.  Starting Friday, March 15th, there will be VOTING for all who finished a project.  Go check it out!!  Edit:  Vote HERE.  Make sure to click on the button ABOVE the quilt you choose!  Voting closes on Friday, March 22nd.