SANTA SQUIRREL! I Need to Make a Christmas Throw Quilt, and I Need to Do It TODAY!

 

Today is the Drop-Everything-And-Make-It linky party at MMM Quilts, which is the perfect excuse (as if I needed one) to give in to the "squirrel" of an idea that's been chasing me around for the past few days!  I've seen so many cute Christmas quilts over the years, but have never had a strong urge to make a holiday-themed quilt before this year.  Maybe it's the pandemic, maybe it's the adorable snowflake E2E quilting designs that I'm dying to try out with R2D2, who knows -- but the squirrel won't leave me alone until I swap out the year-round throws that grace my sofa for something red, green, and scrappy, full of nostalgic and happy Christmas prints.

I didn't have as many Christmas novelty fabrics in my stash as I thought I did, so I had to trek out to two different quilt shops to come up with this assortment:

Assorted Squirrel Project Fabrics, With Neglected Sampler Blocks as a Backdrop

My mom just finished piecing another scrappy tumbler charity top for me to quilt, using my 4" AccuQuilt GO! Tumbler die.  It looks very similar to this one that I quilted a few weeks ago:

Charity Quilt Made With AccuQuilt 4" Tumbler Die

Isn't it cute?  I'm always surprised how quickly these come together.  It only took me an hour or two to cut out all of the tumblers for this, and my mom had the top sewn together in two days.  I need to make more projects like that, y'all, instead of only making quilts that take 6 months to 7 years to finish.  I went to the quilt shop planning to make a throw quilt just like this one, but with solid red fabric in place of the purple and Christmas prints instead of the juvenile novelty prints.

But when I got to the quilt shop, I was delighted to discover that they had a 6" AccuQuilt Tumbler die.  Bigger tumbler patches means fewer tumblers need to be cut out and fewer seams needed to sew them all together!  

57 x 72 Quilt Design Using 6 inch AccuQuilt Tumbler Die

Using the 6" tumbler die instead of the 4", I can get a 57" x 72" quilt top out of just 78 red tumblers and 78 prints.  Not sure if I'll match my seams as shown above or if I'll go with my mom's staggered layout, which gives a nifty chevron/ricrac effect.  This layout was fastest to draw up in my EQ8 quilt design software, and my primary objective was to quickly calculate how many tumblers I'd need to cut out.  (I won't be doing those partial tumbler slivers along the sides, either -- instead, I'll trim the edges to the narrow point on the final full tumbler).  

I haven't decided on the backing fabric yet, although I do have a couple of appropriately Christmasy fabrics in sufficient quantity in my stash.  I'd almost like to back it with a minky cuddle fleece to make it extra warm and snuggly, but that would mean another trip to the store...

Oh, and here's another DREAMI project that I stopped everything to make earlier this month, the one I MEANT to be sharing for today's linky:

My Notorious R.B.G. version of Preeti's International Sisters Block

Once I got the idea in my head to make a "Notorious R.B.G." version of Preeti's International Sisters block, I was helpless to resist!  First, I drafted a foundation paper piecing pattern in EQ8 to change the head wrap of the International Sisters block into Justice Ginsburg's no-nonsense, swept-back hairstyle and the crown that she wears in all of the memes.  The solid black, skin tone, brown hair, metallic gold crown, and floral background fabrics were all pulled from the stash, but I had to hunt down the perfect fabrics to appliqué for her glasses and her dissent collar on the Internet and then wait ever so (im)patiently for them to arrive.  It was a fun little diversion, for sure!  The glasses, collar and "jade" earrings are all hand stitched needle turn appliqué.  If you want to read more about that one, check out this post.  

And that's all you get from me today!  We started putting up Christmas decorations yesterday so there are boxes and debris from that strewn all over the house, and a few gifts that I've ordered have already started to arrived and are wrapped and ready to stick under the tree as soon as I locate the tree skirt.  This year more than ever, the song that's stuck on repeat in my brain is "We Need a Little Christmas" from Auntie Mame!

Rosalind Russell as Auntie Mame

In addition to Sandra's DREAMI linky, I'm also linking up with the following weekly linky parties:

SATURDAY

UFO Busting at Tish in Wonderland

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt