One and only......

I only had one Christmas gift this year to make as a gift for my dear daughter-in-law.

She asked for a Christmas tree skirt, but didn't know exactly what she wanted in the beginning.

We narrowed it down with some encouragement.

She showed me this 12" block that she found on the Internet and that at least gave me something to work towards.....but, she wanted a white snowflake on a white background with maybe some silver sparkle to it; and she knew she wanted some swirly quilting in the background.

I had to talk her into using some other color than "white" since nothing would have shown up if it were white on white.  All that work would have been for nought.  As it was, I had to quilt this in the dark with a black light just to see where I was, where I had been and where I was going.  

She wasn't too sure about an ice blue but finally relented and said to do what I thought best.  

Well, while in Houston, I found some fat quarters that were in white and light grays that had some silver designs/dots in them.  I could only find the fat quarters and 1 yard of the white with silver dots for the background. 

I got my son to enlarge the 12" block to 40" and thought I would paper piece the whole thing making it super easy to make.  Well, I was so worried about not having enough fabric from each of the fat quarters, that I cut out the designs  (6 each) from each fat quarter.  "sigh"  I didn't cut them out in reverse so that I could paper piece.  Oh well, now I was going to have to make this with templates.

In the meantime, I had to run to the quilt shop here in town to find more fabrics that would go with this.  I found some more light grays with silver running through them and one white with white snowflakes; and I ordered more of the white with silver dots for the background.  

 It was pieced in six sections.  

I pieced this in a  square to make it easy for me to load onto the long arm.  

Silver metallic thread was used in the white areas of the snowflake and white Glide thread which is a very shiny thread was used in the gray areas.  

So Fine white thread was, also, used in the background in the swirly design that she asked for to complete the quilting on this top.  

The the quilting was finished.

Hmmmm...these colors don't look as white as the fabric really is, but you get the gist of it all.  

I quilted this in a circle.and bound it just in time for Christmas.

Surrounding their Christmas tree is their Christmas Village and she was hoping that this would give the appearance of being a mountain with the village at the base of the tree.  

She was happy and said it was all she expected, but not being a sewer just didn't know how to express.  I think between the two of us, we did good.  

Moving right along.....

Finished the Babes in Farmland II quilt. 

A charity quilt made by a member of my guild is on the long arm now.

For something else to do besides long arming, I have cut our a few more of my stars to add to the pile.  I promised not to put my stack of stars away to not see the light of day for another year or two, so I plan on making a few more stars to make the quilt just a little bigger.  I cut out the fabrics that I had sitting in the box just for this purpose.  The next ones I will be digging in the stash.  

You can see all the other stars that I have completed here.

These stars measure out to be 5" finished.  

The more I look at these, the more I want to see this in a quilt.  We'll see how far I get.  

Peas and Carrots

Maybe I will call this quilt "cooked" peas and carrots because it sure was hot putting on the binding tonight even for a little quilt. 

This is a Schnibbles quilt with lots of little pieces, but I love it and will probably drape it over a table so that I can enjoy it. 

Here's a close up. 

....and here is the backing. 

This is the first of five little quilts that I got back from the quilter.  So, one down and four more to go. 

Stay tuned. 

Is that your final answer?

Well, maybe not my "final answer", but my "final decision".   These blocks were laid out on the floor for a few days and everytime I passed them, I rearranged a few.  So tonight I thought enough was enough and I sewed them all together.   

Now I just need to find a great backing and it will be ready for the quilter. 

Next project is to get #7 block of the Beyond the Cherry Trees started.  So....happy quilting!