Beginning with a desire to use up my red and green scraps, I started with a rough idea of strip piecing my red scraps in a large rectangular ring around a central block and then adding my green scraps in a way to be determined. I began piecing this quilt early in December 2019 but then holidays, a December graduation, and family visits took priority and my red strips languished on the wall.
Enter January 2020! Champing at the bit, I got back to it. Okay, too late for Christmas 2019 but early for Christmas 2020, right?
After some red strips were put into place I began looking at the Greens. I found a wonky tree idea by Karla Alexander called "Crazy Christmas Trees" that I liked and made a large freezer paper pattern. I pieced one to see if it would fit the bill. It was rather a painstaking process and I decided the fabrics I used were not enticing.....at that point I was just too impatient to move on rather than try another tree version although I am keeping that tree pattern in mind because I love the wonkiness.....it may show up in another quilt someday.
Wonky tree pattern minus the trunk
Trying to figure out the next ring.....
So, what next? The scrappy quilt was looking folksy and homey so I defaulted to old-fashioned, simple, free-wheeling log cabins (one was already in the center) and started piecing them randomly. From a distance they kind of reminded me of Christmas wreaths with red berries! They formed the third ring and then it was time for a final border.
A couple red fabrics from clothes I've sewn for myself many years ago are in this top!
When I showed my 'quilt in progress' to my sisters (who are not quilt makers), one of them said “just the reds would be nice” and another commented that the Greens “seem not to have been invited to the party”. What? It’s a Christmas quilt....so red and green naturally, no? I was committed to my original vision but gave the second opinion a bit of thought and altered the central red rings a bit to extend an 'invite' to the Greens.....can you tell what I did? Not sure if it makes any difference!
I machine-quilted it on my domestic Viking with straight lines....lots of fun because I got to travel across all those lovely colors again and twice enjoy them! I had that wonderful red backing already in my stash. (It's also in the quilt front.) My daughter helped me choose the correct shade of green for the binding....and that was the only fabric that I had to purchase at the quilt shop because I didn't have a big enough piece of just the right color. And now it's signed and ready for Christmas 2020 festivities!
~EYSchmitt
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