Quick Snapshots of Christmas Quilt

I do need a wall that's big enough and free of other things so I can do quilt photos.
This is a Christmas quilt--despite the fact that over 35 years ago I said I'd never make a Christmas quilt! Too much time required to make one for too little time to use it, I reasoned.

I changed my mind two years ago when I found these pre-printed panels, mostly because I knew from previous "Bob Warr" quilts that the piecing would go quickly..

 I added two borders to each block.  Except for the red triangles, the fabrics are from my treasured fabrics from the late 1980s.

 Then I added a border of a wintry gray fabric from the 1990s. (No, I did not choose the best spot to photograph, but the fact that I didn't notice, says something about how forgiving the fabric is.)  I was not especially pleased with the gray quilting, so I tried something different in the other three borders.

 There I used a pale blue thread that just lit up the gray border fabric.

 For the quilted areas around the blocks I used swirlies that go quickly and are ever so much fun to do.

For the binding I cut the red fabric 1.75 inches wide and the green fabric 1.5 inches wide.  After seaming them together, I pressed the seam allowance toward the red and then pressed the edges together--which created faux piping about 1/8th inch wide.

I used Glide quilting threads.

Binding on at last--after the quilt languished for about two years! Now that it's bound and ready for snuggling, I'm thinking there's a good possibility that I'll make another Christmas quilt--or at least a winter themed quilt.

So, I'm quite happy to have a Christmas quilt with colors that will make it useful well into January. I'm just as happy to have a binding on it that required no hand stitching!  (Back when I did hand piecing and hand quilting, I think I was in denial about my own mortality and didn't realize that the ideas will always come much more quickly than the time to execute them!)

Thanksgiving weekend is flying by!  I spent yesterday baking several batches of rolls before we joined friends for Thanksgiving dinner with our twenty-something children, friends, and loved ones.
This morning the college girl and I were at Busy Bee Quilts shortly after seven for the only Black Friday sale that interested me and then went to East Mountain Grill for a little breakfast.  She studied for a while and then went off to see the latest Harry Potter movie with friends while I worked on quilt binding. I'm hopeful that in three weeks when winter break begins I'll have plenty of energy for more quiltmaking.

I hope you all experience a very blessed weekend as well!

Happy quiltmaking, knitting, and creating,