A Christmas Card in Quilt Form

Imagine spending Christmas in the peace and quiet of the country. You are in the fresh air, with good company, a roaring fire, and a bright star overhead. A hammock swings gently in the evening breeze. A lantern lights the words in your favorite book. If only life were so easy!

Here is a Christmas card from the Campground, in quilt form, to make and hang in your home.

The pattern should be ready by next week and available at Maryland Quilter.

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Growing and Changing, Hopefully For the Better

Last year around this time I renovated a haunted house quilt. This year, I’m remaking another quilt, Christmas in the Campground.  Here is the original quilt, designed in 2011:

A few weeks ago I decided to make a pattern of the quilt to sell in my shop. I thought it would be an easy project. The quilt was already made, writing the pattern should be a snap. I’ll just make another version of the first one, taking pictures and writing the pattern as I go.  But then, as I looked at the quilt, ideas came to me. I thought, what if I just did this, added this, changed this, moved this, took out this, and pretty soon I had a completely renovated Campground quilt. It is taking me weeks instead of a couple days to complete and I’m not done yet.

Here is the new 2015 version of Christmas at the Campground, in progress:

Here is a detail:

I hope to have the quilt and pattern done by next week.

Christmas Can Be Ghastlie, Too.

The top and bottom of this Christmas quilt has a border in my favorite fabric design,The Ghastlies, by Alexander Henry. The Ghastlies remind me of the Adams Family or the Muensters. Remember those shows? Kinda funny, kinda scary, weird. That’s the Ghastlies. The particular Ghastlie design used in this quilt is “a ghastlie holiday” in red.

This holiday quilt will make you smile instead of stress:

The quilt is available in the shop here

So Many Snowmen

Every year in November I design a new Christmas ornament. One year it was redbirds, last year was Beta fighting fish. This year’s ornament was suggested by my daughter, Evelyn. She wanted a snowman. She was probably thinking of Olaf, but I was thinking traditional.

I love making the ornaments in batches. Making so many allows me to streamline the pattern, improve it, and experiment, too.

So here is the Maryland Quilter 2014 ornament:

If you want one, buy any item in the shop and mention “snowman ornament” in the comment section at checkout. I’ll include one in your order through December 20, 2014.

Looking for love? Here it is, Writ Large.

Looking for love? Here it is, writ large.  This quilt project started with a center panel design called  “Love”. It was created by Amy Biggers for Robert Kaufman. The panel is entirely pink, lightest pink to darker pink, pink, pink, pink. So my biggest challenge was what color to add to the quilt to not draw the eye away from the center motif. I finally settled on a mottled dark red for the borders, beautiful but restful. Then, to solve the quilt’s need for a bit of color contrast, I put a blue backing on the borders. I made it a rag quilt, so the frilly edges of the seams brought just a bit of blue into the quilt front.

Now I’ll show you the love:

The Love quilt is available in my shop here.

Linking up to:

Sew Cute Tuesday at Blossom Hearts Quilts

Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story

Show and Tell Tuesday at I have to say….

Christmas at the Campground

I made this little quilt a couple years ago in the depths of the great recession. I tried to capture the possible simple joys of Christmas in the great outdoors. I love this quilt so much because it gives me peace. It hangs on a wall in my work shop.

Christmas at the Campground: