Christmas Week ~ Day 6

{December Decor}

Welcome to the sixth and final day of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Today I am sharing all of my quilty Christmas decorations.  We will start in my great room with an old table runner acting as a hearth stone by the fire place. 

Then you can see the new table runner on the cabinet nearby. 

The wreath table topper is on the end table. 

And an old Santa quilt is by the stairs (with new family pictures!). 

There are some new projects I shared earlier this week in the front room. 

Two Christmas quilts are in my bedroom.  One is old and the other a recent finish. 

Two more Christmas quilts are upstairs. 

There is even more Christmas quilts and projects downstairs. 

I love decorating for Christmas, especially with quilts! 

Thank you for joining me for Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Now that I have shared my seasonal projects it will probably get quiet on the blog again.  I'm looking forward to all the family time and finishing up some other projects. 

Merry Christmas from the Quilt Kisses Family!

XX,
Jasmine

Christmas Week ~ Day 5

Welcome to day five of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Today I am sharing a table runner I made for my family room.  It was made with my Northcott Christmas fabric scraps.

I was in such a hurry to finish it before a family dinner at my house that I didn't take many photos in process.  Here is one on my design wall before I quilted it.  There are four different green fabrics, three different red fabrics, and two different creamy gold fabrics.

This is what it looked like during our dinner.

I quilted it with the same metallic gold thread I used on JoAnn's Christmas Tree quilt.  I used my Pfaff domestic machine for the quilting.

I have since added more decorations on the top to hide the speaker my husband bought.

I love how elegant it is.

To conclude Christmas week I will take you on a picture tour of my house.  You will be able to see all of my quilty Christmas Decor.

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out to see what other quilters are making.

Christmas Week ~ Day 4

Welcome to day four of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Today I am sharing the Christmas Race quilt I made with the scraps and leftovers of the Patrick Lose Christmas fabric. 

I cut out four inch strips from the odd shaped leftovers and put them on my design wall. 

It looked a little boring so I added a couple pinwheels. 

I couldn't believe the difference in overall cuteness with just a couple.  I trimmed all of the HST scraps from the Swoon quilt for a total of eighteen pinwheels. 

I added two more fabrics (a dark green pine cone and an ornament fabric) and pieced it all together.  While I call it a race quilt, I actually sewed each row individually so that I could plan where everything went. Then I loaded it on the Bernina Q24 with a minky backing and Hobbs 80/20 batting. 

I quilted it simply with big loops in alternating directions with white thread.  It went very quickly. 

The loops look so cute on the red minky backing.  It is a bright cherry red that is so soft it is silky. 

I added a dark red binding and it was finished before I knew it. 

It quickly found its home in the piano room by the matching tree skirt. 

I love how the piano room turned out with the new additions (even a new picture of the temple where my husband and I were married). 

However, if you think it stays in here you don't know my boys.  This quilt is already loved and drug around the house for cuddles.  It was so much fun making it that I wish I could just sit and sew up the rest of my Christmas scraps.  But I have other projects with deadlines to finish first.  At least I can share a table runner I made with scraps from earlier Northcott Christmas fabrics tomorrow.

XX,

Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out and join the fun.  

Christmas Week ~ Day 3

Welcome to day three of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  Today I am sharing the tree skirt I made for my pencil tree in the piano room.  It was made with the Patrick Lose Christmas fabric leftover from my Christmas Swoon I shared yesterday.

I love the look of Dresden tree skirts.  There are many tutorials online, but the ones I saw were all for bigger, fatter, Christmas Trees.  So I decided to figure it out on my own.  I am sharing my steps in case anyone else wants to make a similar one.  I made a template by extending the shape of my Easy Dresden ruler to be twelve inches long using some old scrapbook paper.

Then I taped a paper tree skirt together from more paper pieces made from the template which had the quarter inch seam cut off.

The twelve inches wide was a lucky guess.  It fit my space and my tree perfectly.

Then I used the paper template (which still had seam allowances) and a long ruler to cut out twenty wedges.

I pieced those all together leaving the last seam unsewn.  My paper template and piecing must not have been exact.  However, I knew that tree skirts don't lay flat, so I was okay with that.

I used spray basting to attach the top to some Warm and White batting.  Then cut them out the same size rounding the edge a little.

I put right sides together with some Kona White for the backing and sewed around the edges with a quarter inch seam leaving a straight part open for turning.  I later trimmed the backing even with the edge of the tree skirt and clipped the small circle close to the seam.  Note: I didn't add any ties because I didn't want them.

After it was right side out I quilted in the ditch and an eighth inch from the edge with my walking foot.  Then I put it around my tree using safety pins on the bottom to hold it together.

It ended up fitting my tree absolutely perfectly.  I love it!  Not only does it match the Christmas Swoon, but it also matches the Riley Blake Christmas bunting in the window.

Tomorrow I will be sharing what I made with the rest of the Patrick Lose Christmas fabric.

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out to see even more quilty projects.

Christmas Week ~ Day 2

Welcome to day two of Christmas Week here at Quilt Kisses.  My second project is a Christmas Swoon.  A Swoon quilt has been on my bucket list since before I started blogging.  A couple years ago I saw one made up in Christmas colors with only six blocks and have been wanting a Christmas Swoon ever since.  I once heard that the Swoon block was originally called the Star of Bethlehem block, so I think it is very appropriate for the season.

Most of these fabrics are from various Patric Lose Christmas lines paired with Kona White.  The pinwheels you see are the scraps from the stitch and flip corners on the blocks. 

I purchased the pattern, but ended up cutting the blocks out my own way. The red pieces in the blocks below were all cut out at 6.5 inches square instead of smaller squares and rectangles like in the pattern.   I was grateful I had purchased half yard cuts instead of fat quarters.

That made it a lot easier to keep directional prints all going the same way.   

I quilted it on the Bernina Q24 with my favorite spiral quilting design. 

The binding is a cute red stripe and the backing is a holly print. 

I tried taking a picture of the whole quilt outside but it was too windy. 

I took it inside and the colors weren't as bright. 

So I just hung it up by the piano where I wanted it to stay. 

This quilt used 24 inch blocks with four inch pinwheels.  It finishes about 60 by 88 inches. 

I will be back tomorrow to share the matching tree skirt I made with the leftovers. 

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the parties on my sidebar.  Check them out to see what other quilters are making. 

Christmas Week ~ Day 1

Things have been a little quiet around here.  It is not because I haven't been sewing, but rather that I have sewn so much and spent so much wonderful time with family that I haven't had computer time.  I have decided to make the time to share at least the seasonal items I have made in the last month.  I hope to share one project a day this week.  :)

This first is a very special quilt because my sister-in-law JoAnn pieced it many years ago.  She was very new to quilting  and had just joined the local quilt guild.  She made a Christmas block and entered it into their monthly drawing and won all the blocks.  They challenged her to sew them together quickly and share it at their next meeting and she did.  One of the blocks is dated 1991, so I think she pieced this 26 years ago. 

Back then she and my mom hand quilted everything (very slowly) so she never quilted this.  After she passed away it sat hidden in my mom's closet.  I saw it earlier this year and decided to finish it up.  Now, the only challenge is that my mom and I both want the quilt.  We have decided that we will rotate years who gets to host JoAnn's Christmas Tree quilt. 

I loaded this on the Bernina Q24 and debated what thread to use and how to quilt it.  I wavered back and forth between an all over quilting design and custom quilting.  Knowing that this will really only be used one month of the year, the all over quilting won out.  Call me crazy, but I actually decided to use a metallic gold thread for the quilting. 

I tested the thread out on a small practice then moved to the big, queen size quilt. (About 90 inches square.)  I thought I was going to go crazy after the fifth time the thread snapped, but then noticed that it was twisting at the beginning of the threading path.  I simply skipped the second hook at the top.  Having the thread go up and then down rather than up, across and down helped so much!  It solved my thread tangling and breaking problem.  (The bobbin thread is a golden tan thin cotton which blends with the metallic gold color.)

Needless to say I was relieved when it came off my frames. 

I raided my mom's stash for the perfect binding.  I found a dark green with tiny metallic gold flecks. 

Most of the backing came from my mom's stash as well.  It is a cute Hoffman Christmas Village print. 

It wasn't wide enough so I added a strip of dark green left over from the backing of my Autumn Race quilt.  I love how the quilt turned out and all the sweet memories it brings. 

My boys love looking at all of the different blocks.  I love the glitter from the metallic thread. 

I put it on my bed to see how it would look and couldn't bear to move it.  So it has stayed on my bed since I finished it last month. 

I'll be back tomorrow with another finished Christmas quilt. 

XX,
Jasmine

P.S.  I will be linking up with some of the fun parties on my sidebar.  Check them out for more quilty inspiration.