Christmas Joy
Two quilts went out for Christmas this year, and one, fittingly named "Christmas Joy" by Brittany at Lo and Behold Stitchery, went to my mother in law. I've had the itch to make a classic red and white Christmas quilt ever since I saw this one on pinterest by Temecula Quilt Co. Then Brittany went ahead and did all the math for me, so I had no excuse!
I'm normally not a block-and-sashing kind of quilter, but I just loved the clean lines of this quilt, and assembly-line block construction like these does go really quickly. I used Kona white and wine mixed with Essex linen in rust, which matched the wine really well. I think you could get away with anything from the wine to a dark burgundy to match this linen! My first intent was to back it with a navy Cotton + Steel print that was perfect, but, of course, sold out the day I tried to buy it. C'est la vie. I'm really happy with the shot-cotton gray I found though (and the little quilt store I now know about!), and I think it will help make this quilt a little less Christmas-y during not-December. I'm really happy with the quilting on this one- simple straight lines following the diagonal of the corner HSTs, which made cool designs where they intersected in the middle of the stars, in between the stars, and on the edges of the quilt. They look really nice against the gray on the back, too.
The pattern was easy to follow once I stopped being a dummy- there are cutting instructions for yardage and fat quarters, and I completely missed the headings that indicated that there were also separate assembly instructions... It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that I didn't actually have to sew the same thing twice! But, that's on me and deadline sewing brain, not the pattern.
I love that it's both yardage and FQ-friendly, and I know there are some versions on the hashtag that are using a different color for every block. If you're using yardage, the instructions call for a bit of strip piecing, which helps tremendously with time management if you start this on December 2.
I did end up making two modifications to the pattern. First, since I was using the two colors sort of haphazardly, I wasn't sure what color I wanted to do the cornerstones included in the original pattern, or if I even wanted the corner stones at all. So, I took them out and did a plain sashing/border.
Second, I don't know if it's just because I'm on the smaller side of people sizes, but this quilt felt a little big at a finished size of 54"x71". Most of my throws clock in at 48"x60", so I didn't mind the width so much, but it felt a little long. I shaved an inch off all the borders and sashing, and that dropped it to 50"x66, which I was much happier with (and was 534 square inches less to baste and quilt...)!
Luckily, my mother in law loved it! I've made her a lot of seasonal things, and although this one feels Christmas-y at Christmas, I think it's finally something she'll be able to use all year round. I'd love to make a version in gray-scale (even though I got the gray-scale out of my system this Christmas- stay tuned for my other Christmas quilt gift!), or invert the background and star colors.If you're looking for a quick and pretty quilt, I'd definitely recommend this one (and Evie does too)!
