One of the common rules of holidays is that the Christmas holiday does not start until after Thanksgiving. Why can’t we enjoy every holiday fully and not brush past the fall celebrations in favor of the more flashy winter ones? But as any fiber artist will tell you, Christmas decorations must be started long before November if they are to be ready for enjoying come Black Friday. Just because we don’t put the decorations up, doesn’t mean that we are not feverishly creating them, and enjoying every Christmas filled moment of it.

But if we were honest, how many of us are actually ready for Christmas? Shirley will be! She got us her Christmas quilt by the end of August which was well within our Halloween deadline.

An Eclectic Mix

Shirley's Christmas Quilt is a fun eclectic mix of applique, pieced designs, and embroidered blocks. She also added some great dimensional elements. She’s got yarn bows and buttons, as well as ribbon and rick rack stitched on. The result is a dynamic Christmas sampler quilt that is something else.

The reason for a meander

Now those elements are really great touches that look amazing on a finished quilt. However they put limits on what you can do with the quilting. We have a computerized system, which can’t see these things and can therefore get hung up on them. Buttons are also a little hard on the needles. Therefore, she had only one quilting option for this Christmas quilt, and that was a meander.

This allowed me to move around the elements and avoid them easily. I also avoided quilting through the Santas. Besides not wanting to put lines all over St. Nick, the thickness of the embroidery would have been tough for the thread. Besides, this quilt didn't need any more details. It was adorable just the way it was!

There are so many memories and traditions in holidays like Christmas. Just imagine gathering all those images in a variety of styles in one quilt. What a great heirloom to give to a family member or friend. Shirley's Christmas Quilt is definitely something special. If you’ve created something special like a Christmas quilt, we would love to see it. Connect with us on Facebook or Instagram and share what you are working on.