12 Days of Christmas in July Blog Hop Begins! And A Giveaway!! And A Tutorial!!

Hi, all!

Good morning, and welcome to the first day of the 12 Days of Christmas in July blog hop (more simply known as 12DCIJ!)  As I write this post, I am sitting outside wearing shorts and enjoying the beautiful summer day around me - but I know that "winter is coming" and so is Christmas!  I always have great intentions of making all my Christmas gifts, but then time gets away from and I end up joining the crowd at the mall or ordering on-line.  Are you like me?  I bet you are!  Well, this blog hop is designed to get your creative holiday mojo up and running!  

First of all, let me share with you the blogs that are participating in this year's 12 Days of Christmas in July blog hop:

Friday, July 14th

From My Carolina Home

Vrooman's Quilts

Pampered Pettit

Saturday, July 15th

Citymousequilter

Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

Quilting Fun

Sunday, July 16th

Swimming in a Sea of Estrogen

Everyone Deserves a Quilt

Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting

Monday, July 17th

Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats

Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

Crayon Box Quilt Studio

Tuesday, July 18th

Seams To Be Sew

Stitchin at Home

Domestic Felicity

Wednesday, July 19th

The Colorful Fabriholic

Smiles From Kate

Thursday, July 20th

Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting

The Inquiring Quilter

Selina Quilts

Friday, July 21st

Katie Mae Quilts

Quilted Blooms

QuiltFabrication

Saturday, July 22nd

Devoted Quilter

Kathy's Kwilts and More

All Points of the Compass

Sunday, July 23rd

Mel's Quilting Blog
Resourceful Momma
Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting

Monday, July 24th

Anja Quilts
PickingandStitching
A Dream and a Stitch

Tuesday, July 25th

Christina's Handicrafts
Abyquilts

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Pretty stellar line-up, right?  I'm so excited to see what each blogger has to share with us!  I know I came away from last year's hop with so. many. ideas.....  Carole of From My Carolina Home and Sharon of Vrooman's Quilts opened our hop last year, and this year they are joined by Brandy of Pampered Pettit.  They have a wonderful variety of things to share that I know you'll love!

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Santa's Trip Around The World

And on this blog, I'll be sharing a tutorial / quilt-along for this quilt each day of the hop, a simple step each day.  If you can invest a couple of hours each day, you can have a finished quilt top by the end of the hop - but even if you can't, it's a quick and easy tutorial that you'll find useful not just for a Christmas quilt, but for a quilt for any season.  More on that below - be sure to keep reading! Today's step is at the end of this post.

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And as if great holiday ideas and a tutorial weren't enough, this year we've got something extra special!  The lovely folks over at Free Spirit Fabrics have donated not just one item for a giveaway, but THIRTEEN!  And it's pretty drool-worthy stuff, too - it's Tula Pink's new holiday line, Holiday Homies!!!

I have six design rolls, six layer cakes, and one fat quarter bundle to give away - and here's how we're going to do it!  Visit each stop on the hop, including this blog, and leave a comment on each post for the day.  If you comment on all the blogs involved that day, you'll have that many entries in that day's drawing!  At the end of the hop, I'll do a giveaway for each day by putting everyone's name in the hat who commented that day (from all that day's hop-blogs and mine), and drawing a winner for that day.  That will be twelve winners - the design rolls and layer cakes.  Then I'll put all the names from all the days in a hat and draw out a grand prize winner for the fat quarter bundle!  Only one prize per person, though - let's spread it around a bit!  So carve out a bit of time to visit all the blogs and comment - it makes the time spent on each post worth it when you see what people think about your work!

A couple of notes about the giveaway - if you miss a day, no worries - I'll be counting up comments at the end of the hop, so you've got time to double up a few days without worries.  But all good things must come to an end, so you'll have until midnight on Wednesday, July 26th to comment.  Thursday I'll gather up all the entries and draw winners and announce them on Whoop Whoop Friday, July 28th!  Also, I'd suggest if you really want to win, you leave your email address with your entry - it's really sad when someone's name is drawn, but they're a no-reply blogger and can't be reached!

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And now we get to my part of today's hop - the beginning of the tutorial!  If you missed the heads-up post on Wednesday, here's the fabric requirements for this quilt:

Fabric Requirements:

10” x WOF of 16 different fabrics - you can choose to use 16 different fabrics, or repeat certain fabrics as desired.

One 2.5” square for center of quilt; fussy cut if desired.

1/2 yard for binding; scrappy binding looks great with this quilt and can help eat up some of your Christmas scraps!

3 5/8 yards for backing

I wrote this tutorial for the 12DCIJ blog hop, so obviously I've done mine in Christmas fabrics - but there's no reason why you couldn't make the same quilt with non-holiday (or even another holiday - Halloween?) fabrics. It's completely up to you!  

Assuming that you now have your fabrics, the first step is simple and basic.  Iron all your fabrics well, matching up the selvage edges and getting a good sharp fold line.  Square up the cut edges of your fabric with your rotary cutter and straight edge  All this is important, because you want your strips to be as straight and true to the grain of the fabric as possible.  Use starch if you want, to help prevent stretching while sewing.

TIP:  I read recently that the difference between ironing and pressing is that you "iron" before you sew, and "press" after you sew.  In other words, you iron to get out wrinkles; you press to set seams and move them to one side or the other.  Here's a great video tutorial that I highly recommend watching about it!

Now on to cutting.  

Cutting from fold to selvage to get the straightest cut, cut four 2.5” WOF (width of fabric) strips from each of your 16 fabrics.  As you cut, set the strips aside in four separate piles, putting one strip in each pile.  When you finish, you will have four identical stacks of fabric strips.

Take one of your four stacks, and press the strips open and flat.  Use starch if you are so inclined.  This will help prevent stretching when you sew the strips together.

Now determine your color order.  TIP:  Find the shortest strip in the stack and start with that one.    This won’t necessarily become the center of your quilt, but it will make it easier to put your strip set together.

When putting the strips in color order, keep in mind contrast between the colors.  You don’t want to “lose” a really cute fabric visually because the colors on either side of it blend in too well!

Repeat, arranging all four sets of strips in the same order.  Your work for the day is done!

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That's it for today, folks!  Tomorrow we'll talk about how to sew your strips together into panels, and then you'll have four days to get the four panels done if you want to do the 12-day quilt top thing. So don't panic that you'll have to do all of them tomorrow!

Now go visit all of today's blogs in the hop...

Friday, July 14th

From My Carolina Home

Vrooman's Quilts
Pampered Pettit

...and leave a comment on each so you'll be entered in the giveaway! See you tomorrow!!

Hugs!

Sarah