Lessons from Christmas 2017

At From Bolt to Beauty world headquarters, Christmas 2017 lingers. The tree is still up and decorated. Toys litter the living room floor. It’s an appropriate time to look back at the events of the past month—the holiday fairs and parties and shopping—and admit it: I botched it all up! I thought I took on a manageable number of holiday activities, but I ended up committing myself to too much.

Case in point: two Christmas tree quilts. I was so proud of myself, back in November, when I came to the realization I wouldn’t have time to quilt either of them before Christmas. I sent both projects off to a longarmer, which meant I was on the hook for binding only. Bind them I did—finally!—on December 23.

The first quilt is for my family to keep. I used it to chip away at my red and green stash, buying just a little yardage to flesh out the fabric pull.

The beauty of this tree block, designed by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter, is that it works with small-scale prints as well as large ones. Before this project, I had no idea what to do with the green and white Trellis print from Heather Bailey’s Up Parasol collection (pictured in tree on right, below), but it works perfectly here. I love how it reads as a lower-volume green without being a light green.

This quilt reminds me that I can veer from my palette on the back of a quilt. The main print on the back, from Anna Maria Horner’s Field Study line, wouldn’t have worked on the quilt top. It has too much cream in it (I used mostly white on the front), and the green is too different. Paired with the three leftover tree blocks and the same cherry red used on the top, however, the AMH print allows the back to both work well in its own right and complement the design on the other side.

The quilting, done by Lisa Teichmann of Garden Gate Quilting, is perfect for this project. The easy-breezy orange peels look ornament-like against the Christmas-tree backdrop.

After finishing piecing the first Christmas tree quilt, I moved on to a second! Whereas the first one focused on cherry reds and grassy greens, the second incorporated pinker reds and yellow-greens. (I get a kick out of seeing the same design rendered in different palettes like that.)

The Bonnie and Camille print from April Showers inspired the palette. It’s not a Christmas fabric, but the red flowers remind me of poinsettias and I like the gray it introduces into the palette.

The back features more Bonnie and Camille. As with most of my quilt backs, I cut a length of fabric vertically and filled it out with a columns of scraps to make a back that would accommodate the size of the top. (More on that approach to piecing backs can be found under the Techniques tab.)

Christmas 2017 was a happy one. We were all healthy, so all of our plans (mostly) went off without a hitch. But binding quilts two days before the holiday was for the birds. If it weren’t for all the other stuff I was doing—the quilted ornaments and belated-birthday sewing and guild commitments—two binding projects would have been doable. Let’s hope I can hold on to these lessons for the next 12 months and make the holiday season of 2018 saner!

How did you hold up over the holidays? Were you crafting at the 11th hour?!

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday, Main Crush Monday, Let’s Bee Social, and Needle and Thread Thursday ...