Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Twelve Days of Christmas Block of the Month

As promised here is a picture of the Twelve Days of Christmas quilt that I've been working on.  It's a red work and crazy patch quilt (35" x 35").  It will be a block of the month for my Palo Verde Patchers quilt group.  The blocks were inspired by blocks I found on the internet and I then re-designed many of them to fit this quilt.  I also designed the layout.  In the 4 inner and the 4 outer corners are crazy patches made using wool felt.  Each month the handwork group will receive one red work pattern and the directions for 2 hand embroidery stitches to be used on the crazy patches.  I'll be doing the hand embroidery right along with the group.  It should be a fun quilt to make.  I think it will take us longer than a year to make though.  There is quite a lot of red work in the various borders.  That final top border took an age to make even though I was very motivated.  I wanted to get the top finished by today so it could be shown as a sample for sign-ups.  Thankfully I met my goal. 

Twelve Days of Christmas (click to make larger)

Here's a picture of the completed blocks before they were made into a quilt:

 

This is the Block of the Month quilt that I'm leading for this year.  It's called, "Calendar Block of the Month".  It combines redwork and applique.  


This year I also taught the ladies the spray-starch method of applique to use on this quilt.  We discussed quilt labels and what can or should be included on a label.  As a side project, I showed the ladies how to make a felted-wool pin cushion.  They all turned out so cute!