Merry Christmas!

Here is Penny contemplating how exciting the christmas tree looks:

And yes, indeed it is!

Merry christmas to all my blog readers!

Amy's Stars Top Finish

Turns out slow and steady won the race with this one. Despite being bored silly making it, I just tackled those half-square triangles one color at a time with a goal of getting two colors done each night after work.

Once all the blocks were made, it was pretty easy to get them sewn into rows. I added two borders - a narrow white one, and a thicker teal one. I don't think the stars pattern immediately jumps out at you with this - you sort of have to look for it, and mostly it just seems like a jumble of brightly colored triangles. I'm not a huge fan, but it's OK - bright colors are good!

This one is being added to the "To Be Quilted" drawer, which is full now. I think I'll be starting off January with lots of free motion quilting so that I can finish up some projects!

Friday Finish: Jingle Bird

My plans actually worked out! I was able to get this basted, quilted and bound and this is now on it's way to my cousin in Louisiana, just in time for christmas!

I think this is a gorgeous quilt, but is it christmasy? Not so much, as it turns out. This was never supposed to be straight up red and green, because her decorating is more teals, so I think the color scheme is as it should be, but I'm worried that maybe I should have added more touches of red, more berries, more birds? I know she'll love it no matter what, and I'll just have to leave it at that.

I did add a christmasy backing with more cardinals and holly and such, so at least there's that!

The quilting on this went super fast with me doing my "Maui's Hook" free motion pattern. The binding is the same material as the inner border, and I did it all by machine for speed and extra durability.

This was a fun one, but I'll be taking a break from fiddly applique for ahile, thank you very much!

Jingle Bird Top Finish

I really went to town over the past couple weeks and cranked the Jingle Bird blocks out. Gosh, I'd forgotten how fiddly these are! Each one seems to have 100 little pieces, and it just takes forever. My previous blocks were pretty traditional red and green christmas colors, with the addition of turquoise in the leaf shapes, but with the new ones I made,  I incorporated some more peach and pinks into the mix and I think it looks nice.

I had grand plans for how to set these blocks around the big center square block with a pieced triangle setting, but after I did all the math and made a prototype, I decided I didn't like it very much, so I did some more math and made each block a little larger with the colored triangles around the edges. After it was all sewn together I decided it needed a little extra something, so I added the red border around the center block by just appliqueing it on there. Ta-da!

As you can see, this is now up on my basting wall, so my project tonight is to baste and start quilting it. I want to have it in the mail by Saturday!