Here's one more quilt from last year...a Christmasy quilt! Yes, I know Christmas was almost 2 months ago, but since it is red and white and almost Valentine's Day, I figured there was no harm in posting it now! :)
So this quilt was another one that I had to make because I had a cool photo op in mind. (Remember this quilt?) I feel no shame in admitting this. Sometimes you just have to use whatever motivation you have to get things done. ;-) I needed a December photo for my calendar, and was trying to think of something that would look cool. I wanted simple, but classic. So I decided on peppermints, and was thinking of making this quilt again in red and white. Then I came across this super cute afghan in a Google search and decided that the peppermints needed to be swirly. Unfortunately, after it was all done, the photo location I had planned didn't work out after all (broken pipe flooded the place) but oh well --the quilt was done!
This was constructed using my favorite method...applique on a big piece of white fabric. Naturally, I mocked this up in Inkscape, printed out one of the red wedges and used that as a template for tracing onto fusible web. Then I ironed them to the red solid (Kona Ruby) and cut them out with a rotary cutter. Then I also printed one of the whole peppermints. I put it underneath the white fabric and used it as a guide for placing the red wedges and tracing around the outside of the circle with a water-soluble marking pen. Then I ironed these on a few at a time and stitched around the applique pieces with a blanket stitch and outlined the outer edge of the circle with a thicker straight stitch. I thought it would take forever to stitch these down, but it was surprisingly fast since I could sew each one without breaking thread.
I quilted this very simply. Just a big swirl inside each peppermint using a groovy board. Of course I wanted to do something amazing and fancy, but lets face it, I just don't plan things well enough to allot time for awesome quilting. I am usually trying to finish in a hurry and often sacrifice "amazing" for "done".
In between the peppermints I decided to do these holly berries. I made the picture in Inkscape and then just used my laser light to trace it--just like with a pantograph.
I backed it in Crimson Minky and bound it in the matching red solid.
Then I took this picture of it for the calendar and gave it to my cute friend Teresa, who was my neighbor in Minnesota. She asked me if I would make her a quilt for her bedroom, and gave me paint chips in the colors she wanted. Well, I tried for over a year to come up with a good quilt using the colors but I just couldn't do it. But I still wanted to give her a quilt. And she loves Christmas, so I hoped this would suffice. She loves it. :)
