12 Days of Christmas in July Blog Hop and Quiltalong, Day 12!

 

Hi, all!

Merry merry Christmas in July!!  We've made it through the twelve days of Christmas (sort of) and the big day is finally here.  And speaking of the twelve days of Christmas, do you know how many gifts you would receive if you had someone who followed along with the song and gave you all the described gifts?  364!  Thank heavens for Google - I'm just not up to that kind of math - but it is pretty amazing, isn't it?  Today Karrin of Karrin's Crazy World is going to bring us home with a little bit more Christmas decor to brighten our lives, and if you're following the quilt-along, we'll be assembling our tops today! But wait - - - there's more!

Good ideas abound whenever we think of Christmas, and today I'm giving you a chance to share some of your own.  You'll find a linky party at the end of this post where you can link up a Christmas post of your own.  It can be a link to an old post if you want - no worries there!  Because after all, the more the merrier!!  So go back through your archives and share a little Christmas joy with us!

And here's the schedule for the rest of the hop...

Wednesday, July 14th

Joy of Days Filled With Joy

Thursday, July 15th

Moira of The Quilted Snail

Friday, July 16th

Jamie of L'Fair Quilts

Saturday, July 17th

Bonnie of In Stitches With Bonnie

Sunday, July 18th

Joanne of Everyone Deserves a Quilt

Monday, July 19th

Kate of Katie Mae Quilts

Shasta of High Road Quilter

Tuesday, July 20th

Vicki of Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

Wednesday, July 21st

Leanne of The Devoted Quilter

Thursday, July 22nd

Kathy of Kathy's Kwilts and More

Sandra of MMM Quilts

Friday, July 23rd

Carole of From My Carolina Home

Saturday, July 24th

Joanne of Everyone Deserves a Quilt (Part 2)

Sunday, July 25th

Karrin of Karrin's Crazy World

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Are you ready to finish up your quilt top?  Let's go!

If you haven't done it already, lay out your blocks on the design wall or floor, starting with a star block and alternating with the snail's trial blocks in a checkerboard format.

Lay them out in a 5x5 grid.  Laid out this way, your quilt top will be approximately 60" square when sewn together.  

Now, I know everyone has their own method for joining the blocks for a quilt top, but let me tell you my favorite method.  I take the first two columns of blocks down, stacking them from the top of the quilt to the bottom (so the top blocks on the wall are on the top of each stack) and take them to my sewing machine. I lay the two stacks side-by-side on the table to the left of my machine, and then I put a pin in the top left corner of the top block on the left stack so I remember which one goes in the upper left corner.  (This can save a lot of aggravation later, particularly in a quilt where your blocks aren't identically colored.)  Then I chain piece the pairs of blocks, leaving them connected.  Take them to the ironing board and press the seams - in this instance, I pressed those seams to opposite sides so the intersections would nest when I go back and sew the cross seams.  You could also continue to press the seams open, but at this point, I was in a hurry to finish and knew it would go together more easily and precisely with the seams nesting.  Then return and sew all the cross seams so that you have a column two blocks wide and five blocks long.  Press those seams, then put it back on the design wall and repeat with the third and fourth columns.  Sew the remaining five blocks together in one column.  Then sew all three units together, and voila!  Your quilt top is assembled!  You may want to stitch all around the edges to secure your seams, but that is completely up to you.  I usually only do that if I plan to take pictures of it outside, where the wind will tend to open up those seams.  

Next up, the dreaded "quilt as desired"!  I thought about it long and hard and finally decided to just use a simple swirl pattern with a sharp point in the center of the swirl instead of a rounded edge.  It takes a little longer but it reminds me of peppermints for some reason!

Find a pretty backing fabric - in this case, I used a perennial favorite from Joann's, because hey, it's peppermints!

And just to add to the peppermint goodness, how about a peppermint twist binding, already printed on the bias so I didn't have to go to the hassle of making bias binding?  I bought a bunch of this when I was on vacation because I loved it so much!!

I hope you've enjoyed this quilt-along - I certainly have!  I'm going to enjoy my own version of Peppermint Twist for many years to come, I'm sure.  And I may just be writing this design up in pattern format rather than tutorial format in the future, if time allows.  We shall see!

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And now it's your turn to spread some Christmas joy!  Dust off an old Christmas post and share it with us!  Because you can never have too many great ideas, can you?  And try to take a few minutes to visit at least a few of the blogs that link up and let them know you were there - that brings a lot of joy to folks, too!

Hugs!

Sarah