Amy's Fall Blogger Festival 2011

Each spring and fall, Amy of Amy creative side blog hosts a quilt festival to coincide with Quilt Market and the Houston International Quilt show. I have entered this festival a few times, because there are so many quilts to view and its fun to meet other quilters who inspire me to keep quilting.
This year, my fall quilt offerings are two Christmas ones that I made some years ago.I have also included the beginnings of a new Christmas quilt project. The first one is a paper pieced poinsettia pattern by Eileen B. O'Sullivan that I made around 2001. My wedding flowers were poinsettias when I married 30 years ago last December- it soon will be 31. We were married the day after Christmas, which we refer to as Boxing Day here in Canada. It was the first paper pieced project that I tackled and I still love it. The original pattern was meant as a wall hanging but I used the flower as a center of the quilt and bordered it out to be a nice sized couch quilt. I have since collected more poinsettia fabrics and one day I will make another Christmas quilt with them.

The second quilt that I wanted to share is double wedding ring quilt. I made it to honor my father's mother memory- her name was Olive and she was a quilter I am told. Unfortunately none of her work remains and I never knew her because she passed away before I was born. She was 43 years old. I chose the double wedding pattern because it was a traditional pattern that she might have made- though grandmother Olive's quilt would have been made with scraps and old clothing. My version was completed about 2003 and it does not have pieced rings like the original design.She would have traced her pieces on cardboard and cut it out with scissors. My center of the rings were not fussy cut. If I were to make one again with continuous rings, I would fussy cut the centers so that I could have had central flowers in them. It was one of the first template quilts I ever made- I used an acrylic template and a rotary cutter to cut the pieces.
Now, there is a wonderful machine called an Accuquilt Go Cutter. It has dies that would make the cutting of this quilt less challenging (and probably more accurate.) Perhaps one day I will own one of those machines...
I showed this wedding ring quilt in a local guild show a number of years ago. It is one of my smaller quilts - about a twin size and it graces our couch each Christmas.


This weekend I started a new Christmas quilt. On my last post I shared the pile of fabrics I collected to make my new quilt. On Thursday night I turned those piles of fabrics into 12X18 rectangles. The next step was to use Freezer paper and trace the design on to it. Once labeled, I then cut it into the various tree pieces. Yesterday, I shuffled the trees from one group to another set of 10 fabrics ( there are 10 red, 10green and 10 cream fabrics ) Once shuffled,one begins to sew them in the order given on the Pieces of the Heart pattern by Sandy Gervais.

The pattern's name is Tree's up- Lights on! When pieced together you end up with some wonky edges. I will later square up the blocks before putting them into a quilt. It will be awhile before this quilt gets completed as I have other projects to finish first. It was like making a jigsaw puzzle and one has to pay some attention to the shuffle order and the sewing sequence. It was fun and I will look forward to getting more of the blocks finished after I complete the fall school report cards and other school work.... One has to work in order to play you know...
If you like these kind of designs you can find more them by checking some of the Buggy Barn patterns as well as other designs by Sandy Gervais. The Buggy barn has a number of seasonal ones that include pumpkins, Santas and witches. Sandy has some fun hats and shoe patterns as well as other seasonal ones..

I hope that you enjoyed seeing my Christmas quilts. Click on the link and go and visit the other quilters who are participating in the blogging show. As always, there are some real beauties shown and some wonderful stories that go along with the quilts.

Thanks for dropping by- I hope you stop by for another visit..
Warmest regards,
Anna