Feathered Christmas - A Finish!

 Feathered Christmas is done! As in, all the way done.  Bound, labeled, and all the offending stitches colored in, done.

 This is another Cherry Blossoms Quilt pattern, just like the Feathered Wreath quilt I did.

 The back.  I pieced that lovely snowflake fabric - from Connecting Threads - which is why it goes two different directions.  Its the back.  Who cares. 

 I even took the time to do a fancy pants embroidered label.  I should do this more often.  As in all the time. 

 The quilting in the center is a nice little loop-de-loop freemotion.

 The applique is raw edge with button hole stitching to secure.  I did this part before the quilting, so as I did the free motion, I also went around each appliqued piece to make it stand out more.

 The sides are a random wavy stitch, which you might recall I went back to fill in another set of lines.  I also quilted around each square in the inner border.  This is where coloring my stitches came into play.

 The corner where all the wavy stitching overlaps.  This way I don't have to pivot nicely. (weird blue picture effect, sorry)

 Quilted and pieced by my trusty Aurifil threads.  Looking a little less robust that when I bought them, but lots of life left in those spools!

The details:
24" x 28"
Fabric: The reds are a couple of batiks.  Incidentally, the white is a white on white, that is the wrong side up.  I got crazy with ironing down the appliques and then realized I had done them on the wrong side! So from there, I just had to make sure that all the white was wrong side up!
Batting is a Pellon cotton.
Quilting, applique, and piecing threads: Aurifil  Red #2250 and White #2024
 All work on this quilt was done by me!

I'm ready for Christmas!  (not really, it was near 70 today and AMAZING)

Cheating, or not? Coloring the quilting.

 I thought I'd pop in and do a quick blog post on why the Feathered Christmas quilt isn't quite done.... (with apologies for not great pictures, but hey, its the first post in like a week)

 It's all because of those white stitched on the red squares.  You see, as I was doing the quilting, I thought, hey, no big deal.  It's stitched in the ditch and no one really cares.  However, I had been planning on 'fixing' a couple of white stitches in the center part that had accidentally bit into the applique.  So then I thought, why not color all the white stitches red????

 So I've been spending some time with a red sharpie and my quilt.  I can only do it when no one is around, because any bump will seriously mess things up.

 So, I just pull back the fabric and touch each stitch with the tip of the sharpie.  The thread sort of sucks the color up and voila - red stitches.  (see the opposite side of the square).

 Is it cheating?  I don't know.  I mean I could  have changed my thread for each block (yikes!) or I could have left it white....  but I'll tell you what, those red colored stitches sure make me happy.
  I totally plan on a finish post Monday.

Feathered Christmas Quilt Tops

 I bought the patterns for these two quilts a couple of years ago.  I bought the fabric for them as well, at an after Christmas sale two years ago.  This past week I've finally put them together.  The shapes are all traced and fused and then I decided that I should do the proper thing and so I used a blanket stitch to secure all the shapes.

 I've got the backs all ready to go and even the bindings.  I will baste them before the weekend so that I can do the quilting this weekend at sewing days for the guild.

 Since I had prepared all those little one inch squares by strip piecing, I put the extras together.  Not sure where its going, we'll see what I end up with.

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday.