Silent Sentinels

Although I managed to get my trees quilt finished on Sunday by 5:30 pm, I didn't get it done in time to take advantage of a couple hours of beautiful sunshine we had in the mid-afternoon. Luckily the clouds cleared this morning and I was able to do a photo shoot in fresh snow that we got overnight.

As I mentioned when I wrote about the flimsy, I bought Amanda Jean's Trees! pattern quite some time ago, before buying the main fabrics, and even when I did buy those three, I did not plan for them to be in this particular quilt. However... I am really pleased that the pattern and fabrics came together as they have! Simmering is a good thing, right?

Here is a straight-on shot in my sewing room. There are two backgrounds/three blocks that pop a little more than the other nine, the lime green/blue snowflakes (Joy by Kate Spain), and the fairly intense aqua, (Winter Wonderland by Bethan Janine) so I placed one in each row. I really wanted a soft and subtle feel to the quilt, so I'm just fine with a couple of the blocks that really blur between the tree and background it's standing against.

I purposely let the meandering flow a bit into the straight lines block to blur the edges a bit. I'm happy with how square it is; very little tugging into alignment was needed.

It took several shuffles to get the best balance where no two backgrounds were touching. Harder than anticipated!

I hit upon the swooping back and forth design in the trees at some point between finishing the top and making the backing, but when I knew I'd have to load it sideways so as not to stress the long vertical seam, I was a little concerned about doing that design sideways, as in up and down as opposed to back and forth. A little practice with a pencil and paper and then with my finger on the loaded quilt top and off I went, flowing happily along. I did a large jigsaw meander in the first block, but found it didn't thrill me at first, so I did lines, à la ripples in water in the next block and thought that was okay, but it still was not making y heart sing as the trees quilting did. In the end you can see I decided to alternate meandering with lines in the background of the blocks and I'm happy with the overall effect. Of course, I ditch-stitched around each block before starting the FMQ.

First column of blocks quilted.

I used Aurifil 2600 for everything but the tree trunks, which got brown thread SITD. The wool batting makes for nice loft and quilty texture. I'm so glad I was able to work in Bethan Janine's chartreuse trees on greenish aqua, as well as the little green fir trees, random ones with pink lights. Does anyone know what fabric that is? It was in a random fat quarters bundle I picked up from Craftsy/bluprint a while back.

I added several other green or blue fabrics, for a total of eleven in the quilt, and I'm happy to say this was a good quilt to use up fabric as the background for each tree takes a fat quarter (and it takes all of that fat quarter but for a small bit in one corner). The trunks came out of my crumbs bag in my brown scraps container.

This photo does a good job of showing the true colours.

I'd picked up two yards of the Robert Kaufman trees fabric I used for the backing somewhere, knowing I had a trees quilt (actually three) on my mental list of 'wannamakes", and it worked well for this quilt, though there wasn't enough, and besides, I'd cut into it (no clue for what). So I got one length and have about 6-8" total of two strips left. I filled in the side with blue snowflakes and almost all of the remaining Winter Wonderland. My 'use it up!' mantra continues this year.

Although there's not red in the front, I think the trees motif (they're made with lines) of the backing fabric is perfect.

Spot the Rufus footprints!

Here's the label, not written on in the above photo.

I remembered to get a photo of the quilt with me, its maker! MacGyver thought I was nuts taking all these photos out there but hey, it's for the blog, and cold fingers warm up fairly quickly.

It may replace Good King Wenceslas as the extra quilt on my side of the bed, or it may live on the couch as a throw for January since its colours are perfect for the living room.

I braved the cold (-8 here today; I'm turning into a wuss after most of my life was spent in Alberta) and walked a kilometre around our 'hood. Had to stop to snap this:

Certainly a fitting shot for this post and this quilt, no? This is the end of my street, about 200 metres from my house. The deep grey/blue with misty white/grey above was actually swirling over the lake.

I consider this another USO, as it's a pattern I've wanted to make for a long time, and the three original JoAnn fabrics have sat in a forlorn little bundle, waiting patiently. I hope to knock one of these USOs off per month this year again. Haven't ever met that magical 12 goal, but it's worth a try again!

Now full steam ahead on PQ and all things plaid.

Quilt Stats:

Size: 52 ½" x 60 ½"

Pattern: Trees! by Amanda Jean Nyberg (Crazy Mom Quilts)
Fabric: Keepsake Calico for JoAnn Fabrics, Winter Wonderland by Bethan Janine for Dashwood Studio, Better Not Pout by Nancy Halvorse for Benartex Fabrics, Festive Forest by Allison Cole for Camelot Cottons, Joy by Kate Spain for Moda Fabrics, unknown turquoise polkadots for Northcott Fabrics,

Batting: 100% wool by Quilter's Dream

Backing: Swell Noel by Cynthia Frenette for Robert Kaufman

Quilted: on Avril, 64 527 stitches

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

Linking up

Songbird Designs

Quilty Girl

Quilting & Learning-What a Combo

My Quilt Infatuation

From Bolt to Beauty