This quilt was started over a year ago, intended to be a Christmas present for a friend. I stalled on the appliqued lights and stuffed it in a drawer after Christmas 2017. I love Alex Anderson's Holiday Lights quilt but was more than a little frustrated with the construction of the tree blocks. The pattern includes templates as well as instructions for rotary cutting: I recommend the templates. The width of the squares used for the trees is 4 7/8" and for me that is not an easy measurement to execute with a ruler and a rotary cutter. Consequently, the top and side points on some of the trees are not exactly, well, pointy. Half and quarter inches I can do .. eighths, not so much.

I started feeling the Christmas spirit in early November and regained the enthusiasm required to finish this project. One of the reasons I had stalled is that I couldn't decide which technique to use for the appliqued lights. Machine? Hand? Raw edge? Finished edge? Finally admitting to myself that I'd never really ever be satisfied with raw edges AND lacking confidence in my machine applique skills, I used featherweight interfacing to line each one of the 78 light bulbs, then hand appliqued the bulbs and "wire" (tri-fold bias strip), adding a string of lights to cover the seam in the backing. I have never done much hand applique and really enjoyed the process!
I doubled up on the wool batting for maximum coziness.
I decided I didn't like the original backing I had chosen and am very happy I purchased this black and white snowflake fabric before Fabric Depot closed.
This project used every last remaining black and white scrap I owned, most left over from the Third Street Neighborhood quilt. I had to buy a few black and white fat quarters to finish up.
My very favorite part of this quilt is the one inch inner border of half-square triangles.
And I really like the appliqued string of holiday lights. I am not all that impressed with the quilting pattern, which is supposed to be strings of holiday lights. The "bulbs", however, are actually too large and look like mittens. But, oh well.
And now I realize that my couch pillows are rather faded and sad and need to be recovered.
But no time for pillows when the boy and granddog want to go snowshoeing.
The granddog is oh so adorable in her jacket and snow booties.
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