Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Another Finish - Christmas Presence

I took this BIG quilt on the plane with me.  My bags were packed last week with 4 quilts.  Someone asked me if I was back packing through Europe.  I stuffed my suitcase and laptop bag full of quilts to keep me busy.  I finished 3 on the flight out there - and this big one on my way back.  


This quilt was made using the presewn together squares Moda came out with a few years back.  This line was call Christmas Presence by April Cornell.  I LOVE this line.  There is the most beautiful black fabric with the holly berry on it.  I still can't believe they left it out of the presewn fabric, but I still love this line.  


The line had a great mix of plaids and prints along with the perfect tone of red and green.  The perfect Christmas addition.  I have had this quilt hanging in my closet for probably 5 years now.  So I was thrilled to get it done!


I used the Holly Panto design to quilt it.  I love the big holly berry leaves.   Not sure if you can see below - but this was the 2nd quilt I did on my new machine and the 1st quilt using a real edge to edge pattern.  No idea what happened, but about 3 inches was skipped.  I was in the stage of watching the quilt machine - like you do your new born baby.  I kept thinking if I walked away a mistake would be made.  This pattern is very dense and was taking a long time - the quilt is so big towards the end I decided to start sewing and I walked away while it started on the next row.  And when I went back I gasped at the GAP in between the two rows!  The row was almost done, so I thought screwed it and will just have to deal with it.  



When I got to the bottom row the pattern was about 4 inches too short - I didn't know how to stretch a pattern back then so I freehanded it - HORRIBLE!  Looks nothing like the panto graph does.  Made me appreciate this magical quilting machine so much more!

Even with the few mistakes - I'm so happy with how it turned out.  I love these fabrics and the quilting pattern and am so glad to have another quilt marked off my to do list!

Linking up to WIP Wednesdays!

2 comments:

Lynn F said...

It sure will be perfect to snuggle up under next Christmas!

OPQuilt said...

I'm finishing up Christmas quilts, too, so congrats on another finish. Don't worry about the quilting, although I know you wish it were different. I think all Christmas quilts were made to be snuggled in and so the Snuggler most likely won't notice the gap.

Once I got back a quilt from a quilter and she hadn't gone edge to edge, so I had to fill in the gaps, too. You are so right--the machine is much more even than us!

Elizabeth
opquilt.com