Christmas Quilts

I mentioned Christmas quilts...and here's the first one! This is the first Christmas quilt I made, and I made it from the same fabrics as my advent calendar. It debuted last Christmas. It's a pattern by Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew called Dixie. It's a pretty basic block; a log cabin with an hourglass in the center, but I loved how she varied the width of the logs and used them to create interesting framing.

But, like all log cabin quilts, it's not a quick sew! This took me a lot longer than I expected it to. I love quilting (obviously...) so that shouldn't be a problem, but I feel like when you're expecting a quick quilt, and it's not, it's discouraging...

I actually used leftover squares from the advent calendar to make the hourglasses...they were almost perfect, I sewed an extremely narrow seam to put them together, and it worked out pretty perfectly. I don't recommend super narrow seams...it's pretty risky. Once they were trimmed up, they worked well for the centers.

And, for the solids, I used a Kona red (I have no idea which one...) and an awesome woven green fabric. Again, no idea on the name, but it is 100% cotton, which is pretty awesome. It's a heavier weight, and the weaving shows ovals. I also used it on the backing; I made a four-patch of sorts for the back with the red and green solids. Allison used just one solid, and as I was assembling the blocks, realized how much easier that would have been; trying to keep a good sense of contrast without using the same combination repeatedly was really difficult. Of course, she used more colors than I did; being limited to red, green, and black was tricky.

The cream is actually not a solid, it's the same snowflake print I used in the advent calendar. I really love that it's the same exact fabrics from the advent calendar, and that they coordinate. But, I'm also glad I'm running low on it, because I don't want everything to be so matchy-matchy. Which you'll see when I post my second Christmas quilt! But don't worry; I still have some Sweetwater left!

I had it quilted by Abby Latimer, and she did a great job! I love the snowflake panto, and luckily, got it into her while all her patterns were a penny an inch. This panto is now 2 1/2 cents an inch.

What I don't love is my binding job. I'll post my binding methods later, and I've gotten better since this one. One of my problems is that I just don't have a whole lot of practice, and I don't really enjoy hand-binding. Since I don't enjoy it, and I need practice, I prefer to machine bind since it's faster. When a quilt is ready to bind, I'm really ready to be done!

Approximate completion: October 2013