Peppermint Lane Finish

I met my goal of piecing 6 holiday quilts this year for some special friends and family.  This is the quilt that got me to 6.  

The pattern is Peppermint Lane by It's Sew Emma for the Fat Quarter Shop.  I made just a couple of changes.

First, I substituted brown dot fabric for my gingerbread men

And I replaced the gingerbread house in the pattern with Bonnie's Santa hat, which I fell in love with while making Christmas Cheer. I'm thinking next year I should make a quilt top of nothing but Santa hats, festive mittens, and maybe a mug of hot cocoa thrown in for fun.

This is Lifetime Quilt Number 236 - Peppermint Lane

The pattern is by It's Sew Emma for the Fat Quarter Shop.  (available here)

The fabric is mostly Vintage Holiday by Bonnie and Camille for Moda

It finished at 55" x 69" 

It has approximately 884 pieces.

I'm leaving off that outer border called for in the pattern.  I like the cleaner look this top has without it.  But to add a little sparkle I'll use the silver stripe fabric from Vintage Holiday for the binding.

I now have one week to piece my traditional October halloween themed quilt, I don't know what it will be, other than fast and easy.

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I've Made an Executive Decision . . . .

Remember this quilt, . . . . I started this quilt in December but refused to finish it because it wasn't my 100th quilt.

Between all the things that we all do to get ready for Christmas, whenever I could squeeze in the time I happily made ornament blocks in my sewing room.

The pattern I  used is "vintage holiday" by Camille Roskelley for thimble blossoms.

(link to Camille's store)

As I sometimes do, I changed Camille's pattern just a tad, I made my blocks smaller, made more blocks, and "hung" them from the sashing.

After days of feeling frustrated with where my other 100th quilt project was going, I decided to put a border on this quilt. After sewing the sides of the border to my top, I decided I didn't like that fabric, I think the print is too small for the center.  

(whew, is that ugly or what!)

So here's another fabric from the line, Roman Holiday,  it is a bigger print and looks nice I think.  The problem was that I only had two strips of this fabric and couldn't find anymore.  After looking at this on my design wall for a day or two, I decided the print was a nice size but still a distraction.

So I cut the border in half and got this, just the perfect little border to finish off this quilt.

This is Lifetime Quilt Number 100!

Boy does it feel good to say that.  After spending months and months of collecting blocks, drawing blocks, and trying to come up with a pattern to exceed all the unrealistic expectations I had created in my head, and making my sewing life stressful and myself miserable, it dawned on me that this Christmas Quilt was me and what I do, and the perfect quilt to be my 100th quilt.  This quilt has red, I changed the pattern to suit myself, and I love it, what more could I ask for from a quilt.

This quilt finished at 48" x 55".

The pattern is "vintage holiday" by Camille Rosekelley for thimble blossoms.

The fabric is Roman Holiday by 3 Sisters for Moda

It has approximately 418 pieces.

After spending (wasting) so much time on the perfect pattern for quilt 100 I'm at a loss as to what start next.  I usually have my next 6 quilt projects lined up, but I'm guessing now that this quilt is done everything will fall into place.

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An Almost Finish . . .

So I was looking at all the finished ornament blocks on my design wall and I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing.  It took awhile for me to figure out what, then it hit me, the ornaments were levitating not hanging!  After decorating 3 Christmas trees this season, I have a lot of experience with hanging ornaments.  So I decided to make my ornaments hang by adding a little gray "ribbon" to the top of each ornament block.

The strip of gray fabric is 3/4" which finished at 1/4".  And just a reminder, my blocks are 6 inches, not 9 inches like the blocks in Camille's Vintage Holiday pattern, which is the pattern I'm using for my project.

Then I got to thinking some more, how I didn't want all the ornaments hanging exactly the same, so I added 3 different lengths of "ribbon" to the blocks and came up with this.

Then I added my sashing and ended up with this.  It doesn't show up in this picture, but the sashing fabric has the prettiest little green leaf design.

Right  now this project is around 44" x 51", I plan to add an outer border, but not yet.   If I added a border to this project it would be done and go on my Lifetime Quilt list as number 99.  But I want Memories of Provence to be Lifetime Quilt Number 99.   And if I added the border after I got MoP finished this would be Lifetime Quilt Number 100, and this is NOT Lifetime Quilt Number 100, so it looks like I'll start the year with a UFO after all.  I know a lot of you are so relieved to hear that!

We had the nicest Christmas at our house,  my daughter was able to make it home for a few days and we enjoyed every minute of our time together.  I hope Christmas was just as merry at your house.

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Nothing says Merry Christmas like sixteen 6 inch square ornament blocks!

These blocks are fun and easy.  I adapted my blocks from Camille's pattern Vintage Holiday.

I'm done shopping, decorating, and wrapping, nothing left to do but have fun.  I hope you have a wonderfully happy holiday season. 

 Best wishes to you and yours,

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Next Up . . . .

Do you work with jellyrolls very often?  I use one every now and then and I like them.  You get a long strip of fabric that is  2 1/2 inches wide for every fabric in a family of fabric.  I'm amazed by what I can make with those strips.  I usually complain a little when I work with jellyrolls, how do I account for those little clipped points on each side and those clipped edges usually produce fuzz that floats around my sewing table.  I'm not complaining about those clipped edges anymore, this is what a jellyroll use to look like, when they were cut with a straight edge.

This is a jellyroll of Roman Holiday by 3 Sisters for Moda, I'm not sure when that family of fabric was released, but I think it was at least 5 years ago.  By the looks of this roll you would think I've been carrying it around in my purse for 5 years, but it has just been molting in a bin in my sewing room closet.  I figured I better use this roll for a quilt before it was just a useless ball of thread.

And this is what I'm going to make with that fabric.

Vintage Holiday by Camille Rosekelly for thimble blossoms.  I've seen these adorable ornament blocks pop up all over blogland and thought I would join in the fun.  That Roman Holiday jellyroll is the only holiday fabric  have in my stash, that sure cut down on the fabric drama for this project.

I think the blocks in the pattern finish at 9 inches, I'm shrinking mine down to 6 inches.

The blocks are easy and they go fast, the perfect little project to squeeze in between all the holiday hoopla.  I just love working on a holiday project during the holidays.

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