Christmas decor creeping in

We are of that odd breed that doesn't trim the Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving.  December 1st doesn't turn the switch on either.  Usually the tree goes up the 3rd week of Advent, 2 weekends before Christmas Day, but then it stays up till after January 1st so we can enjoy the Christmas cheer through the kids' "winter holiday".

However, we do let a few Christmassy things sneak in, a few at a time, earlier than the tree.  This past weekend we took advantage of a milder day to deck out the front step railing with greenery and bows without freezing our fingers.  I added a poinsettia to the coffee table.  Our first Christmas card arrived yesterday so the garland we attach the cards to every year will make an appearance shortly.

And I've been playing with a Christmas fabric honey bun. It would have come together even more quickly if I'd trimmed units earlier in the process.  I haven't used pre-cuts very often, and I forgot that they aren't exactly sized.  My "1.5 inch wide" honeybun strips were a little wider so when I sewed two strips together with a 1/4 inch seam the resulting strip was wider than the 2.5 inches I needed.  This is when I should have trimmed the strips down to the proper width, but I didn't think of that until after I had subcut the strips into 2.5 inch units, which weren't quite square after all.  Instead of trimming 18 strip units I trimmed 108 individual squares.

I've encountered this kind of frustration with pre-cuts before.  Am I alone in this?  I suppose the advantage of these bundles is that it gives you a little bit of a lot of different fabrics to play with, but I don't think it really cuts down on the cutting chore.

Anyway, it's done now and today I'm going to take a deep breath and try my hand at freemotion quilting again.  Wish me luck!

Now Showing: "Heart Mania"

Since I'm hopelessly unoriginal at naming quilts I'm warming to the idea of having the recipient name their quilt.  It worked for my husband's quilt.  My daughter came up with "Heart Mania" for her quilt.  Here it is, finally!

 The 6" heart blocks are the "Heartfelt" paper piecing pattern by Cindi Edgerton. The setting, with 3" borders on two sides of each block, is mine. The cable quilting motif in the middle part of the quilt is "Avalon" from Quiltmaker's "Quilting Motifs Volume 1". The motif on the outside border is mine.

I finished sewing the binding to the back around 1 am on Tuesday.  I should have stopped earlier and finished on Wednesday, but I was so close to being done it was hard to quit.   It was even harder to get up on time and get the kids' lunches packed and everyone off to school on time in the morning!   However I got an "extra squeezy" hug from my daughter after she woke up and found herself tucked under her new quilt, so it was worth it.

On Monday night as I was attaching the binding I was pondering how astounding it was that a 26" square of fabric produced enough bias binding to go around the whole quilt.  I use the bias tube method to make binding.  I have a lovely laminated "cheat sheet" (Quilter's Strip Ticket from Lamb Art Press) with instructions and diagrams on one side and charts listing what size square of fabric I need start with to make various lengths of various widths.  I love that cheat sheet and was rather dismayed when it failed me this time!  Three quarters of the way around the quilt I realized the binding strip would be about 20 inches too short.

It turns out that the chart only works when you put in the right numbers at the beginning...go figure!   I got exactly as many inches of binding out of my 26" square as the chart said I would.  My quilt is 308" around, not the 288" that I looked up in the chart.  Luckily I had enough scrap left over to piece together an extra 20".

Now I'm off to ponder what I will make next.  I can play with other projects guilt-free now that "Heart Mania" is done and delivered.  I'm thinking about a Christmas zigzag table runner for my coffee table...

Almost made my deadline

I almost made my self-imposed deadline for finishing my daughter's quilt.  Of course, the deadline kept shifting, from the end of September, to the end of October, to the end of November.  I'm going to claim qualified success with that last one.  I finished quilting the last little bit of border this afternoon around 4:30 pm and today is the last day of November. :)

The quilt still has to be bound but I'm pressing the binding strip now and will have it sewn to the front by the time I head to bed.  I won't obsess and stay up till the wee hours to hand stitch it to the back, though it is tempting!  If all goes well I'll be able to spread it on her bed while she sleeps tomorrow night so she sees it the next morning.  December 1st is not too far of the mark!

Sorry, no pictures today.  I've got to run back to the ironing board!