What’s On My Sewing Table – December Edition

Ahh, December! Here you are! My house still lacks any Christmas decorations at the moment, but I’m making surprisingly good progress on a new Christmas quilt, so there’s that! Because, priorities, right? 😉 And with that: an update of what is happening on my sewing table this month.

Here’s a little glimpse behind the scenes of where things stand at the moment. Deep into the creative process/mess. But I’m having a great time! It’s honestly the most productive and excited to consistently work on a project that I’ve felt for a while.

You may remember this pile from last month’s edition of “What’s on My Sewing Table”. I’ve been in love with this year’s Liberty Quilting Collection: Woodland Christmas. Some gorgeous, gorgeous prints. I’ve also been wanting to remake my Fraulein pattern for a while now and this presented the perfect opportunity!

The background fabric is a peppered/woven black and white cotton that I’ve had in my stash forever. Because it’s a woven, there’s no selvage, so unfortunately I can’t tell you where it came from or what it is specifically. But it’s the perfect neutral to show off these prints.

Most of the prints I’m working with from Woodland Christmas (I’m using the red, green, and black prints) are small scale – which make them perfect for smaller-scale blocks. 

I also pulled out some green and red Liberty Prints from years past – because I can never get enough of timeless Liberty prints. And Liberty prints are extra sentimental for me at Christmas.

However, Liberty prints are typically really busy designs. As a result they need blenders and basics to provide contrast.

So here are some prints I used – including Riley Blake Sparkler basics(in Black and Redwood), Kisses, Swiss Dots, as well as past Christmas prints and ginghams from my stash. Mixing these basics in with the Liberty prints lets the busier Liberty prints show off and be the divas that they are.

Here are a couple of examples of the busy prints combined with blenders and “solids”. The blenders don’t compete or distract from the busy print designs. 

You can read more tips for choosing fabric combinations here.

And here’s a step back at the big picture.

Playing with scrappy combinations of fabrics is my favorite way to play with fabric. I love the contrast and movement of the final outcome. The more different combinations the better!

Now I’m in the process of picking what color to use for my cornerstone blocks. I’m leaning toward the black because I think it provides more contrast to the colored blocks.

I’m itching to get this one done and off to the quilter’s so we can enjoy the quilt this Christmas season. I found a great woven plaid for the the back to make it a cozy winter quilt. But it’s okay if we don’t get it done before Christmas this year. We’ll still use it this winder AND I’ll be really ahead of the game and on the ball for next Christmas. 😉

With Thanksgiving being early this year, I was feeling so productive and on the ball with big plans to get the house decorated and ready before Dec 1! But then…I got came down with the cousin-cold as my souvenir being with family for Thanksgiving last week and all progress halted.

While I didn’t feel like hauling boxes, I did feel like sitting at my sewing machine. And with extra unexpected time on my hands (thanks to canceling appointments where I didn’t want to generously share this cold) I got a lot of this quilt done. But I really should walk away from the sewing machine and at least set up the tree and plug it in, even if it takes a few more days to actually get it decorated.

And as soon as the decorations are up and a much needed trip to Costco, I’m going to get this Liberty quilt done. And then I can move on to the next-up pile on my sewing table using this Pixie Noel fabric. I LOVE this star cheater quilt panel and think they would be perfect cut up and scattered as blocks in a simple patchwork quilt. 

We shall just have to wait and see if that one get’s done this year or not. 🙂

Happy December! And best wishes will all of your own December lists, plans, and projects!