The Girls Beat Me To It

Hi everyone!  Thanks for stopping by!  My girls actually beat me to posting about this new project over on the Ao4 Digest, so I figured I better get off the stick and blog it as well!

Years ago ... we don't have to talk about how many ... my friend Donna sent me what she called "scraps" -- leftovers from a Christmas project she had wrapped up.  WOW!  Not only was it very kind of her, but ohmyword, I LOVE the fabrics!!!  And there were TONS!!!  Time to put them to use!  ... finally.

It started with one innocent block:

Tell me those aren't the coolest, hippest, swinging-est fabrics!!!  So totally retro-Christmas!!!  I paired everything with an awesome city map fabric I recently purchased.

The block sprung out of one of Jenny's tutorials over at Missouri Star Quilt Company -- it's the Beach Balls quilt.  I thought the beach balls could also look like Christmas ornaments -- right?!?

I kept marching:

I wanted each ball, each ornament to be different, so I kept dealt my fabric pieces out, then Wonder Clipped them together.  I knew they'd get all mixed up otherwise.

I had lots of help along the way:

Such wonderful company!

There were an awful lot of flippy squares involved:

When I trim the excess fabric off, I like to use my "Add A Quarter" ruler.  It's really for paper foundation piecing, but I've found that the ridge lines up nicely on my seam line, then I can just zip the flips off with my rotary cutter.

I also sashed with the map fabric.  I couldn't wait to see what it would look like:

Part of Jenny's design that I really liked was that her sashing and cornerstones made little Shoo Fly blocks.  I love sub-pattern play like that!  For the triangles in the Shoo Fly, you actually make flippy squares on top of flippy squares!

Donna had used a dark green sort of marbled print in with her retro Christmas fabrics.  I thought that would be perfect for the Shoo Fly blocks!

Here it is, laid out on my "design wall" (OK, a piece of batting tacked up above my closet door):

You can get the general idea there.  Some of the flippy squares look flipped up, but ... you know.

I liked the layout (horizontal, vertical, repeat, repeat; vertical, horizontal, repeat, repeat -- and on), then set about sashing them all together:

I totally dig the fabrics!  How can you look at them and not be happy?!?

Here it is, once I got it all together, complete with border:

How I went from my perfect layout to the above, I do not know.  Somehow I got the rows out of order ... but I really don't care.  I could not love this more than I do!

The fabs from Donna feel so 1960s to me, and bring me back to my childhood.  The map fabric - it's some made up city, I think - but paired with these fabrics, it's like Christmas In The City!!!  We spent many Christmases at my Grandparents' houses in Pittsburgh, PA.  I remember going downtown to look at the lights and the pretty Christmas window displays!  I especially remember Macy's, for some reason.  I also remember the smell of city bus exhausts -- for some reason, it's a pleasant memory!  That's all what this quilt brings to mind for me, hence the name Christmas In The City.  Many, many thanks to Donna for her "leftovers"!!!

Tune in tomorrow for a look at the quilting!

Thanks so much for reading!

KZK