Tree Wall Hanging - Quilt

 

The Christmas elves has been VERY busy down in my sewing room.  A few days into December I decided that I wanted to tackle this wall hanging for my mom as a surprise Christmas present.  When I took my "start quilting" class back last October my very first project was a log cabin wall hanging.  Actually, now that I'm writing about it, I don't think I ever even blogged pictures of that. Anyways, way back when I did that I gave it to Mom and she's been hanging it on one of the walls in her house for the fall months.  She's been asking for a set of them for the seasons but I've had plenty of projects to keep me busy and truthfully I just couldn't find a patter or fabric that inspired me.  

That is until Amy of Diary of a Quilter posted this tutorial for the prefect tree wall hanging.  I'd been envisioning something like this for the last year or so but didn't have the quilt smarts to figure it out for myself so I was so excited when I read her post.  A quick trip to my local quilt shop and I came away with the perfect fabric and I was set....all I had to do was actually make the thing.  HA!  I started this quilt on December 7th and miraculously managed to finish it on December 23rd.  The turn around time on my quilting projects is usually a few months but the fact that this hanging is tiny helped a lot.  And, I was motivated by a deadline. 

Since I bought the fabric locally I don't have a good way of figuring out the designer/collection on it but most holiday prints are just around for the one season.  I usually order most of my fabric online but the short deadline on this project made a local purchase a must. 

This quilt is 25x33 and will fit perfectly on Mom's wall.  I decided to try straight-line quilting for the first time.  Small projects = a great time to try new things.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.   These lines are quilted 1/4 inch apart (the size of a standard quilting foot) and quilting that closely together makes for great texture.  It also takes a TON of time and thread.  I learned a few things along the way.  Mostly that if you quilt down on the first line, you need to quilt the next line from bottom to top.  If you don't you end up just pushing all the fabric and batting down making it off center.  I learned that in my quilt class but I didn't understand it in practice until I actually saw the results first hand.