norweigan woods christmas quilt

it's time to meet my first shop sample quilt!

working at a quilt shop has been AWESOME, and making quilts to have on display has been one of the perks of the job.  quilting for work, and then having an awesome project in the end?  don't mind if i do!

tayva showed me a handful of quilt patterns and asked if i was interested in making any of them, and when i saw this quilt with trees made out of triangles, i fell in love.  originally, i had another line of fabric in mind, but when that quickly sold out on a live show, i found the farmhouse christmas line of fabric from northcott and fell in love with the cute little candy canes and gingham prints.

i had to add some extra emily to it, by creating the star out of moda grunge as well as the entire background.  silver grunge is probably my favorite shade of gray to use.  it is perfectly perfect! 

i debated doing a white star, since i wasn't sure how the yellow would blend with the other fabrics, but after some convincing, lemon drop yellow grunge was there to stay on top of the trees

piecing the triangle trees was incredibly easy.  i actually did most of them at a sew day with the sacramento modern quilt guild.  the templates are included for all the triangle shapes as well as the stars.  there were a few pattern corrections, but it was just the labeling of pieces.  no measurement changes or anything. i just love these little trees!

i was pretty certain i was going to gift this quilt to someone (not that i had any idea who at the time) but i'm pretty sure i might keep it...  even though i still have my own planned christmas quilt to finsh up... which i finally bought thread for too!

i didn't use the red snowflakes in the trees, so i thought they would make the perfect binding.

and they did.

i have been talking about binding options with a lot of people lately, given my job, and i've come to find that i'm all for a bolder binding that really frames up the quilts.  if it is lighter or more subdued, its great and all... but boy do i love that red against the gray!

alright now this quilting...

i had planned to go in and just free motion woodgrain all over it, but once i saw this holly berry/poinsettia pantograph, i couldn't NOT use it.  it went so well with the prints in the fabric, and added a great all over texture to the quilt as well.  the way it popped out over the darker colors, but blended in with the rest... perfection.

and i loved the candy canes so much, i couldn't help but use them for the backing.

i'm not one that devours candy canes by the package during the holiday season, but they are probably one of my favorite festive prints to have in fabric.  plus the holly berries and snowflakes just make it that much cuter!

spud cat... always in the way.
with the new shop open, plus the grand opening this weekend, i was able to make a few kits of this pattern for customers to buy.  many had been asking for awhile, and since the fabric had come and (almost) gone, i was able to get 9 kits put together.  it was pretty awesome seeing people buy them, since that meant they really liked my choices!

now that this quilt kit has had such success, i cannot wait to see how well the dinosaur kits do.  which is totally on my list of things to get together soon, so stay tuned if you shop our live shows!

pattern information: norweigan woods by abbey lane quilts

quilt count: 144