Good King Wenceslas

I had a pretty good month for finishing quilts, especially those of the USO (Un-Started Object) kind. This is number three, the sister to Santa's Power, which I made in December 2022. I bought this wonderful border print, 2.5 metres of it, close to 20 years ago, knowing I would somehow design a quilt with the same Ohio stars pattern as in the king's/Santa's coat.

And, there it sat, for the next many years until I pulled it out in 2022 and made Santa's Power. I loved how it turned out; I had even bought the trees print in the same line to use as backing, and even bound that quilt with it, using it up completely, hooray.

Well, I still had a bit of the green, lots of the red, (I'd felt in the first as well as in this second quilt, that my original thought of making alternate 9" squares in red as in Santa's coat was too overpowering) and half of the border print yardage left. Sadly, only a small rectangle of the blue remained. When I was pulling out all my Christmas yardage at the end of November, I found the little stack of these fabrics, and thought, I need to make another. Dayna, for whom Santa's Power is named, due to her mondegreen of the carol, Good King Wenceslas, had claimed that quilt, and, sad as I was to see it leave my house, she really should be the rightful owner of it, and I knew it was going to a good home. It's been in use each Christmas since though I think this year is a first for this use.

Harper

So I pulled out a Debbie Mumm remnant in a similar blue, and headed to the yellows stash to find a gold. I was surprised (okay not completely) that I still had enough of the Debbie Mumm gold I'd used in the first quilt, but it is the same print as the blue I planned to use, so I found a small chunk of a gold peppered cotton I'd used in the first of my niece and nephew quilts, Shift, whoa, back in 2015. I cut everything out for the eight stars, and then, when riffling through the remaining Christmas fabrics pondering on patterns, I spied a pretty blue with gold stars...another Maywood Studio fabric! Not this line, but the blue was so good. I'd made two stars at that point, and felt the Debbie Mumm blue was a little too light. So I made one star in the Maywood blue just to see... Well, I liked it a lot, and cut out the (32) 3 ½" squares needed to do all eight stars. 

Once I put up a couple more of the Maywood blue stars, I quite liked the effect of the mix of half Debbie Mumm and half Maywood blues, so I went with it. Each one felt either a little too light or dark for my liking...in other words, using both were just right! I've read that it's good to be a little too light or dark with values for added sparkle or depth or something or other.

Flimsy all done

In Santa's Power I had trimmed off the flying Santas and moons for the middle strip, but for GKW I left it intact. I think I did that with the original one because I wanted the border strips to be borders, so I set the middle strip as him walking through the forest. If I did that again here, it meant I'd have even more leftover strips, not to mention the blue, green and red yardage all have the flying Santas which I've never used. Well! I planned to use up those strips along with the leftover red yardage on the back of this quilt, but another gander through my Vault of Happiness backing cupboard yielded the red flannel that I instantly knew had to become the back for this quilt. I remember being in a quilt shop either with my quilting friend or the quilt guild I belonged to in the early 2000s in Alberta when I bought this intending it for a Christmas quilt sometime. I was so pleased to see I'd pre-washed it--maybe I'd thought to use it on Santa's Power? There was enough for GKW, with a 59" x 14" strip left after piecing it horizontally.

I thought the fox label was a perfect one to go with the animals of the forest in the border print.

I’m actually glad our rain turned to some fresh snow for the perfect backdrop!

I quilted it much the same as the first one, organic flowing lines with a beautiful bright Christmas green Aurifil thread, switching it with an ivory one through the snow. I added in more loops, double ones, in this quilt.

I love the golden words that Santa in the moon is tossing out: Love, Joy, Peace.

I kept it the same through the stars and rail fence section, SITD through all seams, and straight or diagonal lines through the blocks. I cleaned Avril’s tracks and wheels with an adhesive remover liquid and she has been sewing much better since. I'll still get my husband to give the wheels an extra-good clean now that I don't have a quilt ready to quilt.

I used Aurifil for everything: piecing, quilting, and stitching down the binding. Two of these I bought; the rest are from being an Island Batik ambassador. They were so generous!

I used the Maywood blue for the binding, and, in looking up a couple of things for this post, I discovered that I also used this pretty fabric in Grandma's House, both in the house and for the binding! There's now just 11" x WOF left, so into the plastic drawer organizers it's gone. It feels so good to move fabric from yardage cupboard to plastic drawers or even scrap boxes storage, or, better yet, have none at all left.

I plan to use this quilt for a couple of years, and then give it to Brady, who only has one Christmas quilt, gasp. Right now it's my extra quilt on my side of the bed, as I like weight and warmth.

Couldn’t resist taking a photo of the real moon when I was taking the outdoor photos.

Quilt Stats:

Size: 51 ½" x 59 ½"

Pattern: my own design
Fabric: On A Winter's Night by Kathy Schmitz for Maywood Studio, Debbie Mumm for SSI, peppered cotton for Robert Kaufman; binding is First Frost by Maywood Studio 

Batting: 50/50 cotton bamboo by Kyoto

Backing: Santa's Coming by Nancy Halvorsen for Benartex Fabrics

Quilted: on Avril,  67 906 stitches

Threads: pieced with Aurifil cotton; quilted with Aurifil; 100% rayon by Floriani in the bobbin