Christmas Quilt for Mom

I finished this one about a week ago, but now that my mom has her early Christmas gift, I can show you! We were in TN most of last week for a big family thing and it was great. Truly, truly great in so many ways. I wanted to give this to her before the rest of the extended family arrived at their house, so last Sunday after dinner I told my parents I had an early gift for them. Of course, mom immediately gasped because she assumed I was going to say we were having another baby. Um, no just a measly quilt that I started working on back in August. What a gip :)

She wasn't actually disappointed at all, she was thrilled to have a quilt made for her and really loved it. 

I used 2 charm packs of Kate Spain's Flurry line along with 2 charm packs of Bella white to make all the HSTs. Then I decided I wanted it a little bigger, so I got some Flurry yardage and added borders. I like the way it came out, but I can't help but wonder if it would have been better to use the solid red all the way around. Oh well, the green is pretty too. 

The back is all one fabric, (what?!) an old Valori Wells print that matched the red and white of the quilt perfectly. I had 8-9 yard of this on hand from an old random Christmas project, so I was happy to use up a good bit. The quilting lines are about 3/8" on either side of the seams that form the diamonds, and continued out that way onto the borders. It came out to 72" by 58." The binding is fun, but sometimes I wish I had used a calmer print. And Christmas fabric in general is not my favorite, but this line is pretty and I was glad to get to try this off-center diamond design that I love. This is one of those projects that has several very small regrets (like also wishing I hadn't spilled coffee on it while I was in the middle of quilting), but overall I'm still happy with the end result. And most importantly, mom loves it. 

It's officially Christmas now I guess. I still have a LOT of sewing to do. I don't think I'm attempting any more quilts as gifts, but knowing me that is likely to change. And since most of the Christmas season technically takes place in fall, I'm going to enter this one into Celebrate Color. Now, hopefully the kids will stay asleep a little longer so I can put my fresh-from-the-shop machine to good use. After three weeks apart, we might just need to hug for a bit first...



(PS, if anyone wants some of that red and white Valori Wells print, PLEASE let me know!)