12 Days of Christmas in July Blog Hop Begins! And Quilt-Along, Day One!

Hi, all!

Welcome to the 12 Days of Christmas in July Blog Hop and Quilt-Along!  We've got a whole bunch of fabulous ideas and tutorials coming your way over the next twelve days, guaranteed to jump start your Christmas spirit - and a fun Christmas quilt that you can make in twelve days if you've got about an hour a day to work on it.  What more could you ask for?  

What more could you ask for, you say? Well how about a GIVEAWAY??!?!?  FIGO Fabrics has stepped up and is offering a fat quarter bundle of their fun new Christmas line, Wintertide...

...for one lucky blog-hopper!  Entering is simple:  On each blogpost, there will be an entry form for you to fill out with your name and email address (so we can contact you if you win!).  Be sure to scroll down and hit SUBMIT when you've entered your info!  As you visit each blog, fill out the form and you're entered.  How easy is that?  You can enter once on each new blogpost of the hop (on the day they post), so that will be twelve times on my blog, and twenty-four more times if you visit all the bloggers who are participating. Entries will close on Tuesday, July 30th, and I'll announce the winner on Wednesday, July 31st - New Year's Eve in July!

Here's the entry form:

(Remember to click SUBMIT!)

NOTE:  Jamie of L'Fair Quilts, the first stop on our hop, is right smack dab in the path of Hurricane Barry this weekend and may not have had internet service in time to get the entry form on her blogpost before the storm hit.  So if there is no entry form on her blog, please feel free to come back here and enter again!  And say a prayer for Jamie and all the others in the path of the storm....

And here's the line-up of bloggers for this year's Hop...

Sunday, July 14th

L’Fair Quilts

Vrooman’s Quilts

Monday, July 15th

Sea of Estrogen

Mel’s Quilting Blog

Tuesday, July 16th

Days Filled With Joy

The Colorful Fabriholic

Wednesday, July 17th

Pampered Pettit

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Thursday, July 18th

Kathy’s Kwilts and More

Selina Quilts

Friday, July 19th

The Quilted Snail

Saturday, July 20th

The Inquiring Quilter

Anja Quilts

Sunday, July 21st

Riceford Streams

Monday, July 22nd

Katie Mae Quilts

QuiltFabrication

Tuesday, July 23rd

Made by Marney

Selina Quilts

Wednesday, July 24th

From My Carolina Home

 Karrin’s Crazy World

Thursday, July 25th

Christina’s Handicrafts

Everyone Deserves a Quilt

Click on that day's blog link and take a few minutes each day to drop by the Blog Hop participants, take a look around, and leave a comment to let them know you were there - they've worked long and hard to share some Christmas goodness with you! 

Today we have gifts to unwrap from both Jamie of L'Fair Quilts and Sharon of Vrooman's Quilts.  They are two of my oldest blog friends - we met online way back when I first started blogging in 2009 - and they are some of the most creative people I know!  Jamie introduced me to the wonder of bonus HSTs and Sharon is a prolific scrap quilter.  You're going to love their blogs!!

And each day on this blog there will be instructions for a little bit more of this year's Christmas quilt, which I'm calling "My Favorite Things"...

The quilt-along quilt this year is only 36" square, so it's perfect for a wall hanging or table topper - and I'll be sharing some ideas for making it larger, too.  So let's get started!

*&*&*&*&*&*&*

Day One - Cutting!

If you've been following along, you'll know that in the past few weeks I've shared a design coloring sheet and inspiration shots (here), a tutorial for a sample block (here), and a guide to figuring out how much fabric you will need for your design (here). Please read through those posts if you haven't already, because they  contain key information for making this quilt successfully.  I also recommend that you make a sample block (it doesn't take long) as it is a great way to work out any problems you might have before you start with your good fabric, and get over any fear you might have of working with triangles.

If you've done all that, it's time to start cutting!  For best results, I always press my fabric before starting - because usually the selvages need lining up properly to get straight cuts.  A few minutes here will make the whole cutting job much easier!  

I'm going to give you the cutting instructions for my version of this quilt, but if you've designed your own (see two paragraphs above) you'll obviously be using your own.  Here's a picture of my design:

Using that picture, I created the following charts to determine how much fabric I needed and how to cut it:

Then I combined the information they contained into one chart to see what I needed to cut:

For this quilt, you can get 20 3.5" triangles from a 40" long width-of-fabric (WOF) strip, and 16 4.5" triangles from the same length.  You can get 8 5" squares, each square yielding 2 5" right triangles for the corners.  

NOTE:  Please refer back to this post if you need direction on how to cut out triangles.  There are pretty comprehensive directions there, and it seems silly to repeat it all here!

So from my first color, I need 20 5" right triangles, which means I need 10 5" squares.  For ten squares, I'll need two 5"xWOF strips.  I'll cut those WOF strips first, because I'll be able to cut some of my smaller triangles from the leftovers.  Cut eight squares from one strip, then cut two from the other strip. Cut them diagonally for the 20 right square triangles you need.  

Now trim the WOF strip to 4.5" wide and cut four 4.5" triangles.  Then trim the WOF strip to 3.5" wide and cut as many of the 12 3.5" triangles from it as you can.  I was able to get all of my Color #1 pieces from the two 5" wide strips. You may not be able to if your fabric is not as wide. If you can't, cut a 3.5"xWOF strip and cut the remaining 3.5" triangles you need. 

Continue with the rest of the colors.  Keep them someplace safe - it's really frustrating to get to the end and find out you're short a triangle or two!  I use a see-through project bag for mine, but a shoebox would work just as well.  Just find a way to corral all those pieces!

Cut all of your pieces out today, because block-making starts tomorrow!  It shouldn't take more than an hour or so today, and the blocks take about an hour each to make, too.  

You may want to do a little setting up to prepare for tomorrow, too. For best results, you should iron every seam before you sew the next one, so having an iron and ironing surface right at hand will be really useful.  Either that, or you're going to get a lot of exercise getting up and down!  

I'm looking forward to showing you how to make this quilt - it's a lot of fun to make, and rather addictive.  I say that with confidence, because I'm on my third version right now!  

See you tomorrow!

Hugs!

Sarah