BQF Fall 2012

It's exciting to participate again in the Bloggers Quilt Festival again!  I'll tell you it's hard to decide on just one quilt to showcase though - they all become favorites when trying to choose.  Since last time I used one of my early quilts, today I chose a recent finish to share.   

If you've blog hopped your way here for the first time - welcome!  This is my first Christmas quilt and I've already pulled it out some evenings to snuggle, so it's going to be a favorite for sure.

A little quilt history, if you will.  Momm & I have been to the Houston Show several times now.  On one of our first visits, I couldn't resist a layer cake of Moda's 'Merry & Bright' fabric line.  It sat in my stash for a couple years as I couldn't decide what to make with it.  This year, I finally decided to just use it already!

quilting detail

I'd picked up a copy of Simplify, Camille Roskelley's book at work and found the perfect pattern: Sweet Pea.  Instead of cutting my fabric down, I opted to just use the layer cake squares straight up.  Less trimming and it made the quilt bigger.  I still wanted it to be wider though, so I went looking for some good fabric to go with it.  Surprisingly enough, I found the same blue plaid print from the line this summer, on sale, in a shop in WI! I went with just the one side strip to make it a bit edgier (is it okay to make a Christmas quilt edgy?) and really love it.  I used the plaid again on the back in addition to some other prints I had in my stash.

I had the most fun quilting this one!  I did free motion holly leaves & circles all over the quilt in my bright green Aurifil 50 wt. thread.  On my little Brother machine it's definitely tricky to wrangle any decent sized quilt but it turned out well and looks awesome.  I've already pulled this quilt out some cool evenings to snuggle with and it will be a staple come winter. 

Quilt Stats

Name: Merry & Bright Christmas Quilt

Size: throw sized

Pattern: Sweet Pea, by Camille Roskelley, in her book Simplify

Fabric: Merry & Bright layer cake, for Moda, 

Christmas prints & green solids for backing & red solid for binding

Quilting: Free motion holly leaves & circles by me!

Techniques: machine pieced, Free Motion quilting

#384

Best Category: Fav. Throw Quilt, Fav. Home Machine Quilted Quilt

Hope you enjoyed this little history & a peek at my new Christmas quilt dear readers.  Be sure to check out the rest of the amazing quilts at the Festival!