~ Christmas Joy Quilt ~

Hello Happy Quilters!  I'm so excited to finally get my Christmas Joy Quilt off the frame.  This is a fairly small quilt and  pretty lightly quilted it should have taken no longer than 2 days to quilt.  However my ruler foot broke and then there was an issue with a back spinning bobbin.   The powers that be love to throw me a few curve balls with ever quilt.  

The quilt will be used by my grandchildren when they come to visit during the holiday season.  I wanted it to be soft and cuddly for them and have pretty quilting is for me.   I think I achieved both.

Sometimes it's hard to achieve the feathery look I love without making a stiff quilt.  The trick is to not follow some of the so called rules for custom quilting.  I'm pretty sure the longarm quilting police would curl their noses at the lack of background quilting in my applique blocks.

Now all that's left to do is add the polka dot binding.  Since I have about 11 months to finish the binding I'll take my time and hand stitch it to the back of the quilt.

The Christmas Joy Quilt pattern was designed by Carol Swift for the Thermoweb website. I made a few alterations to the pattern to make my own.  Click here for the original pattern.

Just a little reminder that you can still gt 20% off you entire purchase at The Purple Hobbies website using the code PodunkPrettiesJan20  

Offer ends February 29, 2020.   Make sure when adding the code to your shopping cart that you click APPLY.  You can see my review of the BladeSaver Thread cutter here.  And the Third hand Binding Folder Clip here.

50% OFF Sweet Sixteen PDF pattern

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expires 2-15-2020

#thermoweb #heatnbondlite #christmasjoyquilt

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~ Quilt Border Options ~

 This may not surprise most of you when I say this....I changed the pattern.  Just a tiny bit, a few minor changes.  There was absolutely noting wrong with the pattern other than I wanted it a little larger.  So with the help of EQ8 I started playing with options.  Before showing you my changes I want to give credit the designer of this super cute quilt.  Carol Swift from Just Let Me Quilt designed this Christmas Joy quilt for ThermoWeb.  It's a FREE pattern that you can find by clicking here.

Instead of trying to recreate Carol's applique blocks I used what was already in EQ8.  Here's the first quilt I came up with as I set the blocks into place.  It's still too small but I like the look of the extra hourglass blocks around the outer edge of the quilt.  Making them in three colors instead of 2, then setting a plain block in between.

Now to find a border.  My first thought was to do a simple border with a fun bright binding to finish it off.  I like it but let's see what else I can do with a few clicks of my mouse.

This one was interesting but still doesn't WOW me.

I have to say this one I LOVE but it would require ordering more aqua gingham for the border.  I have some but I already have a plan for it in my next quilt.

At last I think this will be the one!  I might even add a little more applique to the corners. 

Carols quilt finishes at 50" x 58".  My quilt finishes at 72" x 72".  The yellow square on my quilt shows the original blocks without the sashing in Carols quilt.  Another change was every other row of hourglass blocks I turned.  In Carols quilt they are all the same direction.

Now to find the perfect red stripe.  I used a small red stripe for the candy canes in the stocking blocks.  The plan was to use the same red stripe for the border.  However it just didn't look right. So I dug deep into my stash and found this wider stripe...I love it!  I think it's going to be perfect.  What do you think?  The small stripe or the large? OH!  you know.... I could omit the applique in the corners and do a mitered border.  What do you think?  Should I ?  I'll need to think this over as I run some errands this morning.  I can't wait to get home and start adding the borders.

#christmasjoyquilt 

#freequiltpattern

#christmasquilt

#thermoweb

#heatnbondlite

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