Christmas Tree Farm Quilt

Last fall I made the Patchy Pumpkin Farm quilt for my eldest daughter, Brianne, who lives in Alberta. When Dayna was out there visiting this fall, she fell in love with the quilt and asked if I would make her one. No problem. However, I thought, why not see if she'd like the Christmas tree farm version, same truck just with trees as opposed to pumpkins. She did, so I purchased that pattern from White Plains Quilt, and here it is, ready before Christmas!

She wanted it in traditional Christmas colours, so I asked her if she wanted all forest green trees or some forest green and others a celadon or tarragon green as in the original quilt. She liked that, and lo and behold, I had one in my Kona stash, but no clue what name it is, as I never used to be bothered keeping track of the shades I'd bought. I had enough to make all seven of the trees.

The trees and the stars sew up quickly.

The pattern uses the two-at-a-time HST method, so there is no waste as there is in the pumpkin version with stitch and flip corners. I used my 2" finished Accuquilt die to cut the triangles so it went even faster. The truck is a bit involved, but the steps are clear and I did not have any issues as I did with the pumpkin version.

We finally had a gorgeous sunny day on Tuesday, though gale-force winds, so off I went up the road to Coppola Tree Farms to get some glamour photos. It’s just a couple of kilometres from my house. The man was so kind to help hold down the quilt for the above photo. Not sure what he made of this woman who wasn’t there to buy a tree, just take photo of a trees quilt!

I love this barn. The gentleman perhaps Mr. Coppola(?) told me it is well over 100 years old. Apologies for the sun glare.

I used mainly Kona solids: snow for the background, celadon for half of the trees, and silver for the truck window, wheels and bumpers, a darker grey that I'm not sure of the name for the tires. A favourite (vintage) Nancy Crow was finally pretty much used up for the truck body, an Island Batik brighter red for the fenders and a Blank Textiles burgundy for the inner fenders. That burgundy is the leftovers from the backing of Brianne's wedding quilt, and another chunk of it has become a new wider ("to hold more books, Nana") library book bag for Brady. It is almost all gone now. I had bought nine yards as it was for a queen size quilt. The truck rails are from stash and scraps. The forest green trees are Island Batik 'Pine'.

I finished off two cones: one of So Fine and the other Bottom Line. That’s 6000 metres of thread!

I quilted it with floppy feathers. I did them on Brianne's pumpkin quilt, along with swirls. Dayna's is all floppy feathers. I really enjoy quilting with So Fine; it’s a beautiful fine thread. Because it is polyester, the lint is almost non-existent! 

I backed it with Fireside. This is similar to Minky, a bit less stretchy and not quite as plush, though very soft.

OMG do you see a satin label? ....neither do I. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Guess I'm doing some reverse sewing and inserting...

My friend Cathy in Port Perry, the one who got me to speak to the three guilds in October, 😁 asked me if I'd ever tried it, and no I hadn't; I had never heard of it. When I visited The Sewing Shoppe a few weeks ago to pick up Minky for Pat's quilt, Broken Heart Syndrome, I asked if they carry Fireside and why yes they did! They had it in a soft white, so a chunk went home with me to try. I think it would be lovely for baby quilts. It has great texture!

A closeup of the cloth label.

I used the Island Batik Pine to bind the quilt, machine stitching to the back and topstitching it down on the front.

I actually prefer to stitch it onto the front and then topstitch it onto the back for hand finished look, but I didn’t want a line of stitching on the front for this quilt since the quilting was flowing and soft.

As per usual, I quilted the recipient's name, in this case, Dayna, in the quilt, as well as my initials. I love getting requests from my family and I’m so happy to fulfill them.

Quilt Stats:

Pattern: Christmas Tree Farm 

Size: 54.5" x 64.5"
Fabric: Scraps and stash

Batting: Hobbs polyester

Backing: Fireside

Quilted: on Avril 99 853 stitches

Threads: pieced with Aurifil cotton; quilted with So Fine 401 polyester.

Linking up

My Quilt Infatuation

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

From Bolt to Beauty

Alycia Quilts

Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!

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