Christmas Quilts!

I’ve wanted to make Christmas quilts for all the kids for years. Recently when I was moving my studio from a guest bedroom to the basement (more on that later) I was consolidating fabrics and sorting the mountains of stuff and realized that a whole huge bin was nothing but Christmas fabric. Fat quarter bundles and charm packs along with yardage and scraps galore were just waiting to be cut and sewn and quilted for giving. So I did just that!

The local quilt shop had a sale and I bought 5 cuddle backings (you know the squishy warm stuff that feels like velour?) I then chose 4 fat quarter bundles I had in the bin and a stack of charm packs. It really shouldn’t have been too challenging but did I mention, I didn’t start until AFTER Halloween? Yep. That wouldn’t have been too bad, but I planned to gift these quilts on Thanksgiving! I wanted the quilts to be used for this holiday season, so that really only made sense.

I cut and pieced the first quilt, then loaded it on the longarm and started on the next. I repeated this process until all the quilts were pieced and then I started the binding marathon. The binding was done all by machine so that was easy! Did I mention I pieced all of the battings as well? Nothing like using up those extra pieces as well!

I finished all 5 quilts with a couple of days to spare. I folded them over the stair railing and watched the kids all oooh and ahhh as they discovered them. To my delight, there was more than one squeal when I announced they would each be taking one home. Thankfully they were able to decide without having to resort to drawing numbers (printed in case a brawl broke out!)

The kids surprised me with which quilts they chose, but they all seemed delighted in the end. It’s a joy to visit their homes and see them in use! I am so blessed to be able to do what I love, gift the results with love and see them received with love. It doesn’t get any better than that!

Merry Christmas everyone,  Diane