Enchanted Evergreens Quilt

I'm excited to introduce you to Enchanted Evergreens, a quilt I designed for the Christmas issue of Fat Quarterly.

I was inspired by the Christmas movies of the 60's with the random Christmas trees randomly placed around the set to create a Christmas forest.

I had some major help making this quilt. Karen, my aunt, lovingly pieced the top for me while I finished up a few other projects at the same time.

The blocks go together pretty easily, making this quilt the perfect project for the beginner/intermediate quilter to throw together before Christmas. All you need is a ruler with a 60* line, or a 60* ruler such as the Hex N More ruler to make those triangles.

I quilted this quilt on my longarm in rows of random loops, which look like Christmas ornaments to me.

If you're interested, head on over to Fat Quarterly and get yourself the latest issue. Having personally looked through the issue, I can say that there are a number of other great patterns.

Enchanted Evergreens
75.5" x 91"
Fabric: Aspen Frost by BasicGrey
Thread: So Fine #50! Barely Mint
Batting: Quilters Dream Cotton

Christmas BOM Finally Finished

Yup, it's official.  I'm finally finished the FQS Designer Mystery BOM from 2010.  I finished it at retreat last weekend. This made my third finished quilt top for retreat.  Granted I just needed to finish the border, which took a LOT longer than anticipated.

I struggled with the border for a while.  I have no idea why, but I had issues aligning the stars so that they lined  up.  I cut fabric the wrong length.  I had a hole burned in my fabric, so I had to piece on part of the border that didn't need to be pieced originally.  Needless to say, I loathed this quilt come the end. Especially when I laid it down and realized it didn't lay flat in one area (see that pucker in the border on the right). Seriously?  I haven't had this many issues with a quilt in probably 5-7 years, when I was still just a novice quilter.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled that this top is done, but I think I'll be putting it away for a while until I grow to love it again and want to quilt the top.

I do want to note that the issues I had were not with the pattern itself.  The FQS did a good job with the pattern, I just had so many issues with the border.

Guess What I Finished?

That's right, I finally finished the ten stars that are going to be a part of the border for my 12 Days of Christmas, FQS BOM quilt.

The tricky part about these blocks was matching the point where the white points met near the center of the star.  Because the white pieces were at different angles, I couldn't just line them up and sew 1/4" seam.  I had to slightly overlap one over the other.  Let's just say I became friendly with my seam ripper while piecing these.  After I pieced the entire block, I realized that it actually looked cool when some of the blue points were cut off because it gave the block a more random look, which is the look that I think the block is going for, so I actually did it on purpose on some of the blocks.  It's so counter-intuitive to cut off points that I tried to make perfect, but I like the effect.

Designer Mystery BOM - Block 9

Whew, I'm on a roll.  I not only finished block 8 of the Fat Quarter Shop's designer mystery BOM, I finished block 9 too.  This one is supposed to be two matching ornaments, but i think it looks more like two Chinese lanterns.

Can I keep this momentum up?  I certainly hope so. 

Designer Mystery BOM - Block 7

A finished up block 7 of the Fat Quarter Shop's Designer Mystery BOM recently.  I have blocks 8 and 9 that I need to make up.  Yes, I'm behind.  I'm actually behind on both of my BOMs.  Oh well, it is what it is.  Life has been crazy lately.  I'm not on a deadline or anything.  I find that when I put myself on a deadline that it just stresses me out and takes the fun away from quilting.  I want quilting to remain fun, so I will continue to do things on my terms and not stress out about being behind. 

I love this block.  Isn't it cute?  I think so.  Believe it or not, in my 8+ years of quilting, this is the first time I have ever made flying geese.  I don't know why.  I don't have an aversion to them, I just have never made them.  Now I can say that I have.

Here are the first 7 blocks all together.  Once finished the quilt will have some sashing in between all of the blocks.

Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing everyone and their family a Merry Christmas!

NEMQG - Holiday Mini Quilt Challenge

Last weekend the NEMQG held a holiday mini quilt challenge with our pincushion swap.  I decided to make a small quilt using needle turn applique that we learned in our last meeting.  I knew that I was going to be busy traveling for work, so I saw that as the perfect time to work on a needle turn applique quilt. 

I designed the quilt myself after sketching up a few different designs and settled on a gingerbread house and a Christmas tree. 

I made it using the scraps that I had from the Fat Quarter Shop's Designer Mystery BOM except for the brown house.

Here are a few close-ups.

I added some crystals to the Christmas tree to look like ornaments.

Here's the house.  The windows and door knob are made of buttons. 

Here's the back of the quilt where you can see some of the quilting that I did. 

I was running short on time for the binding, so I ended up machine stitching it down using some metalic thread. 

Now for the competition.  There ended up being four quilts total entered into the challenge.

After seeing all of the quilts up there, I knew I had no shot of winning.  I mean, come on, look at some of those.  They're fantastic.  Everyone at the meeting was given a piece of paper to vote on their favorite quilt.  After the tally, quilts 3 and 4 (from left to right) were tied for third place and quilts 1 and 2 were tied for first.  I have to admit, I was a bit shocked when I learned I was tied for first.

Because there was only one winning prize, we had to have another vote off between quilts 1 and 2.

After the second tally, again quilts 1 and 2 were tied.  (I was shocked that I was still in it, much less tied for that awesome quilt on the left.)  Then, we realized that we were missing one vote, the deciding vote.  After all of the votes were recounted and the tally was final, MY quilt was dubbed the winner!!! Holy cow!!!  I seriously never expected to be the winner after seeing all of the cool quilts. 

So now this cute quilt is hanging in the hallway off our kitchen to our master bedroom.