Another Little Trees Quilt is Finished

Sandy has been busy, busy, busy quilting her Little Trees, including over Christmas - which to me sounds like the perfect way to enjoy the holidays - and now it's finished. Apparently the trick is to spend many an hour stitching while watching cheesy Christmas movies and enjoying an eggnog or two... a recipe for success if you ask me.

Unfortunately, she didn't quite make it to get photos while her Christmas décor was still up, but she's still very happy with how it turned out and I can't help but agree. 

Remember the great bicycle fabric that she found for the backing?

Well, she just couldn't resist using some of it on the front too, and who can blame her? It's gorgeous and works so well with the green gingham - such a great find! And I love how she quilted the trees; it's a great fit for the contemporary prints.

This was her first attempt at a bias binding and apparently it will not be her last. I find it so much more enjoyable to stitch a binding on the bias; there's a softness and pliability that you just don't get when it's cut on the straight of grain. That candy cane stripe is the perfect finishing touch to a beautiful Christmas quilt.

And I have to share the beautiful Christmas cards that she made too - SO much work, and more beautiful trees!

Apparently she has nothing else in the works right now so her new year will really be a fresh start when she lands on her next project. She is keen to start on something though because she's not certain that she knows how to watch TV without needle and thread in hand...M

One Last Look and a Hint

Little Lena's Little Trees is finished! I enjoyed every minute of hand stitching the last of the binding down and now I'm just pinching myself at how cute it is. She is going to love it!

Already I'm wishing that I had a few more meters of both the border and backing so that I could make a throw for me. 

Those snowmen with their little parasols are just too cute for words and were a great find.

And I never tire of scanning the trees for my favourite, changing my mind in an instant. As a reminder, the inspiration came from Ana Jantina's quilt by the same name. You can order acrylic templates to make it but I drafted my own pattern; it's 2" x 4" and I made the stumps narrower than she did. It was a fun hand stitching project. Recently I've also found a free paper pieced version from Country Lane Quilts if you want to give them a try too.

I'm really tickled with the binding - it adds just enough colour without overpowering the softness of either the front or backing.

Whoever designed that snowflake panto - you know, the one that I asked Roberta to use over and over for my projects this fall - deserves a medal because the flakes and the swirls combine to create just a beautiful finish for a decidedly winter quilt.

So much so that it's also been used on that secret sewing project that I hinted at a couple of months ago. More on this one in about a week.

So, it's time to say goodbye to Little Trees. Or is it? Maybe I should start a throw for us for next Christmas....M

Where, Oh Where, Did The Past Week Go?

Last Sunday I was all excited to start binding Little Trees after picking it up from Roberta but somehow my week conspired to have me doing everything but. Finally, last night I got to cutting and machine sewing it down so today I'm looking forward to lots of hand stitching.

I thought that I was going to use the light blue with red berries and I had toyed with using as a narrow border, but when it came time to cut I just wasn't convinced. It was okay, but somehow a little flat.

Then I thought I'd just use the green in the outer border, but it was tough to get a good cut, either on the bias or with the straight of grain. It just felt that introducing another colour would give it a nice pop.

So I went back to the pink gingham with the polka dots that I had purchased when I bought the border and backing fabrics; it seemed to pick both of them up, and there's just enough red in the dots to make it work with the reds in the trees and the snowman toques. It also adds a nice little touch of whimsy.

As you know, I'm a sucker for gingham on the bias so it didn't take much to convince me.

One side is hand sewn now so if I get into a good football game this afternoon there's a chance that it could all be finished up today, which would be terrific....M

Baking Day and Itchy Fingers

I spent yesterday in the kitchen prepping all of the items that I had promised for the bake table at the Holly Bazaar. The Official Cookie Tester was on duty as well, ensuring that the Toblerone Shortbread was up to snuff and, while he was at it, sampling a few other wares as well. As of last night everything was baked, packaged and labelled and the house smelled of chocolate, butter and cinnamon. A nice way to fall asleep.

So with that behind me, it's back to quilting (I'm missing making and sewing down bindings so my fingers are getting itchy to do some hand sewing 😉). I dropped the flimsy for Little Trees off for quilting a little while ago and picked it up today from Roberta, so problem solved. It. Is. Just. Adorable! 

After adding in a white-on-white border with a wintery swirl around all of the trees I debated including a very narrow blue border.

In the end I opted to just use the wide green border - it kept things open and airy and let the little snowflakes in the print shine. When I saw the quilted finish I knew that it was the right decision. 

I was really keen to get it trimmed up and binding made today but I had a few errands to run and chores to do, so it will have to wait until tomorrow, but I am SO looking forward to having that handwork on my list of things to do. Have I mentioned that it's adorable?....M

Time To Get My Little Trees Together Too!

Off and on throughout the last year you've seen the progress and finishes of the Little Trees quilt from Jane, Linda, Sandy, Anne and I. After seeing Sandy's come together I decided that there was no time like the present to move mine forward a little bit, especially as the calendar creeps towards Christmas.

All of the trees are sewn by hand but I decided, in the interest of moving things along, to sew the rows together by machine.

I believe that there are 12 rows with 14 trees to a row. I had one tree left over.

Following Linda's lead, I used a spare bed as my 'design wall' to get the right mix of trees, stumps and backgrounds. That last row really had me hugging the edge...😉.

Credit for moving this along goes to the fact that I had ordered border and backing fabrics. I wasn't certain that they would do the trick, but when they arrived I realized that they would be ideal.

The green will be for the border, possibly with a thin border of the pink check. Love the tiny snowflakes.

And these sweet little snowmen will be the backing. Is it not just the cutest???

I mean, seriously... ADORABLE! Lena is going to love them.

All the rows are together and about a third of them are pressed. I had thought that I'd hand stitch them while watching TV but I think I'll try putting them together by machine so that I can get this flimsy to Roberta and have it back in good time for Christmas (only 81 days to go!)....M

Graphic and Gorgeous Little Trees

Sandy was in town for a visit a few weeks ago so I was lucky enough to see her Little Trees in person. Just gorgeous!

Her palette and fabrics lean more to the contemporary side with wonderful graphic elements (including black trees!) and it really works.

She's got all of her trees together and to assemble the flimsy she is sewing together 'blocks' of 18 trees, numbering them as she goes, and will then sew the blocks together. Since it's being stitched by hand this helps her to work with smaller sections and avoids having to deal with the bulk of a growing flimsy. Clever girl.

And, she found a few great fabrics for borders and backing. Don't you just love the Christmas bicycle print? It's for the backing. 

Those baskets are filled with mistletoe (or is that a tiny tree?) and a lovely stack of prezzies is balanced on the back fender. Apparently she scored a great deal at her local Fabricland; I went looking for some in town, but no luck.

The red pinstripe will be for the binding. Very candy cane!

All told, five of us will have made Little Trees when all is said and done and I continue to be intrigued with how the different approaches work up in the same pattern. So looking forward to seeing how this one evolves....M 

Christmas at the Lake

Slowly we are beginning to venture away from home for short trips and the other day I shared the undeniable pleasure of hand stitching on the deck at Jane's lakeside home, accompanied by both Linda and Jane. The the usual show and tell unfolded, with lots of gorgeous projects to share; top of mind was Linda's charming Little Trees. 

It's for her youngest granddaughter, Lucy, who recently moved out to the east coast. It will be a Christmas gift but she and Jane are heading out for a visit in a couple of weeks so she wanted it finished up so that it could be wrapped and delivered in person.

It is just SO sweet, isn't it?! In addition to adding a couple of borders she stitched a personalized message, the icing on the cake.

And could that backing be any more fun?? It's flannel so it is guaranteed to be warm and cuddly. Such a special gift - Lucy will be more than thrilled!

The finishing touches are all done so nothing left to do but get it wrapped and delivered....M

Lots and Lots of Little Trees

Jane has inspired four of us to begin work on our own Little Trees - Linda, Anne, Sandy and I - and I've been anxious to see how everyone's tiny forests look and compare. All of the gals are having tons of fun with this one and were happy to oblige with a little show and tell.

For Sandy, this is the perfect little project to have on hand when there’s not a lot of ambition to be juggling a bunch of fabric. To date, she has 87 trees all pressed and trimmed and a whole whack of them in various stages of construction, which means she will be pulling out her iron again soon! 

I had suggested that she iron the seam attaching the trunk to the tree flat to avoid the bulk and that's working well. After rummaging in her scrapbooking stuff she found her bone folder to help hold those seams in place and avoid burning her fingers; worked like a charm.

 

Linda has been busy too, with 110 trees made up so far.  

She is starting to assemble a piece that is 12 blocks wide by 9 blocks long. Once she sees how that looks she will decide about borders. According to Linda, 'Looks dang cute thus far!'. Totally agree.

Anne's little forest is 50 strong and feels more autumnal than Christmas to me with the oranges and greens. Love all the brights.

It's always amazing how the same pattern takes on a completely different feel depending on the fabric choices.

I go in fits and starts with mine and have had a huge bundle in need of pressing, so I finally got to that, trimmed them all and did a head count. I'm up to 153 so far. Maybe I should start laying them out too and see where it takes me.

The joy of pressing is that you get to revisit the fabric combinations in each block. Love this one, but then I find another and love it too! I've been very conservative with the backgrounds for all of my trees, leaning to the lighter prints, but I might want to follow Linda's lead and venture into using a few stronger prints.

I loved seeing where everyone is with this project and look forward to seeing each of the quilts develop. Hope you did too!....M

More Little Trees

These days when I'm not building yellow houses I'm picking up a Little Tree or two, and they are starting to add up. I think I must have close to 100 made now. I keep a pile of them prepped and ready to go near my chair in the study and often during the evening news two or three come together before I know it. 

They are fun to stitch and I'm enjoying pulling together different combos for the tree, background and stump.

What I really love is having a seam that is longer than 5/8" to sew (can you say Minnie...?). The edge of each tree is about a four-inch seam and it almost feels like a foot by comparison 😄.

I started pressing the seam between the tree and the stump up towards the tree but changed my mind on that so as to avoid a lot of bulk at the bottom corners of the tree when I join one block to another. It means pressing open a small seam, which can sometimes be a little iffy with the iron, so I've been using a handy dandy Fingerthing.

This little gizmo was in my Christmas stocking and is proving to be perfect for such a small job. It's basically a stiletto on a band that you can adjust to fit your finger (I've got it flipped around on my finger compared to the image above).

This is what the packaging looks like; it's full name is Sew-E-ZFingerthing. I use it to help keep my seams open when I press them to avoid burning my fingers but it's handy for any number of things, including guiding your fabric through your sewing machine. I believe that Santa picked mine up from Connecting Threads.

I guess one of these days it will be time to start considering a layout, but it's been so nice just to be able to pick something up and stitch without too much thinking that I haven't really gone there yet.

Lots more fun to be had!....M