Oh! Christmas Tree

Yes, it's true - I've escaped New Zealand and like many other Kiwis and Aussies I'm travelling in Europe right now.  In fact by the time you read this I think I'll be in Amsterdam.  You can follow my travels on Instagram - @wendysquiltsandmore  or Facebook - Wendy Welsh - if you're interested.  

But I know a lot of you look forward to reading a blog post from me each week, and linking up to or following the Peacock Party links, so I've prepared five weeks of blog posts to keep you covered while I'm away.  Each week I'll be featuring one of my favourite quilts that I haven't shown for quite some time.  

First up is my "Oh! Christmas Tree" quilt designed by Wendy Williams.  You can read all about it here. 

I know I say it about a lot of my quilts, but I loved making it.  All the bright colours, the wool felt and the hand stitching were just my thing. 

Just looking at these photos makes me consider making another one in a different colour way.  

Now it’s time for the Peacock Party.  Feel free to link up a recent blog post below. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

2022 Christmas Countdown - Oh! Christmas Tree

 Day 23 of my Christmas Countdown and it's my "Oh! Christmas Tree" quilt designed by Wendy Williams.  

I love that this quilt represent Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere.  We still like the snowy images on Christmas cards, but we know Christmas is the start of our summer holidays and it's going to be hot.  Many people have a BBQ for Christmas lunch and eat it outside, before taking a dip in the pool (if they're lucky enough to have a pool in their back yard).  

I loved choosing all the bright colours for this quilt, and then doing all the hand applique and hand quilting. 

You can read all about this quilt, including where to buy the pattern, here on my blog. 

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  How's your Christmas decorating coming along? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Midwinter Christmas continues

Some of you asked to see more of the Christmas quilts I took to Pinestream Quilters last weekend.  

Well, first up was my Oh! Christmas Tree quilt designed by Wendy Williams.  You can read more about it here.  I love this quilt because it really does represent Christmas in New Zealand and Australia.  It's all bright and summery, and that's how our Christmases are here (even though I used snowflake fabric for my background). 

I loved doing all the wool felt applique.

It's hand quilted with Aurifil of course!

I also took along Flocks by Night, another wool felt applique quilt designed by Wendy Williams.  You can read more about it here.  I loved appliqueing the trees in this scene.  

I used Aurifil lana wool to applique some of the trees down

My Holiday Homies quilt was still up on the wall in the spare room, and I was just going to leave it there until Christmas, but I made an exception and took it down so I could show the ladies on Saturday. You can read more about it here.  I designed this one myself because I wanted to use the quirky animals in Tula Pink's Holiday Homies range.    

And finally, I showed my Holiday Patchwork Forest quilt designed by Amy Smart.  You can read more about this quilt here.  

You've possibly realised that my Christmas quilts are all small quilts or wall hangings.  We don't need quilts on our beds at Christmas because it's summer time.  

Now it's time for the Peacock Party.  What have you been up to this week? Feel free to link up a recent blog post below.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Oh! Christmas Tree

I haven't made any Christmas quilts this year, but I'd like to show you my Oh! Christmas Tree quilt that I made back in 2016.  This quilt is a great example of how you can take your quilting lead from the design in the fabric.  See all those snowflakes in the backgroud? I hand quilted over them with Aurifil 12wt and now they stand out beautifully.

This is a wool felt applique pattern designed by Wendy Williams of Flying Fish Kits.

I loved making this quilt because I got to play with all the brightly coloured felt.

My background fabric contained snowflakes, so I just hand quilted the snowflakes with my favourite Aurifil 12 wt in a soft grey colour.  It was so easy! The snowflakes really stand out because of the hand quilting and the wool batting.  I wanted the texture to be focal point, not the stitches.  However, I did use red Aurifil for the hand quilting around the edges.

If you'd like to know more about how I hand quilt, you can click on the tab at the top of the page, or click here. 

For the wonky stars around the edges I echo quilted each one in the 12 wt grey, and then echo quilted again around the inside of the square with a matching Aurifil 28wt thread.

If you're keen to make this quilt, I recommend that you pop over to Elizabeth Eastman's blog OP Quilt and follow the steps in her quilt along.  Quiltmania did publish the pattern in Simply Moderne, but there were some errors that Elizabeth corrects in her posts.
I provided some of the information and photos in Elizabeth's posts, so I can guarantee the instructions she has provided are correct.

You can read my previous posts on this quilt here.

My quilt is bright and colourful to represent Christmas down under.  I live in New Zealand and it's Summer here and all the plants are flowering.  This is what Christmas looks like in New Zealand and Australia:

Don't you wish you could celebrate Christmas in summer? Or would that just feel wrong?

Merry Christmas.

Oh Christmas Tree

I'm very happy to say that I've finished one of my 2016 goals - the "Oh Christmas Tree" quilt designed by Wendy Williams. I've spent the last two months hand quilting it and I just love the soft texture it has, due the hand quilting and wool batting.

I do love Wendy's designs, and I really enjoyed using the wool felt again in this quilt. I decided to make my quilt bright and summery, because Christmas is in summer time in New Zealand.

Here's some close ups of the flowers on the tree.

When it came to the wonky star border I knew I wanted to go bright, so I chose a selection of bright prints from my stash.

Here's some close ups of the hand quilting.  I used Aurifil 12wt for the stars on the background fabric because I love how soft and silky it is. I always use a hoop when I'm hand quilting.

If you're looking for this pattern you can buy it from Material Obsession in Sydney, Australia here, or you can find it in QuiltMania's Simply Moderne magazine, issue 3.  However, if you're going to to use QuiltMania's pattern, please be aware that there's a mistake with their triangle template.  It says the seam allowances are included in the template, but they are not. You can read more about the impact of that error here on Elizabeth's blog.

In fact I strongly recommend you read through all the relevant posts on Elizabeth's blog, because she ran a quilt a long for this quilt during 2016, and provided a huge amount of background information.

The finished size of this quilt is 55" x 62", and I will use it as a wall hanging at Christmas time.

March update

Here's a little bit of what I've been working on lately:

Gingerbread Quilt Shop

As some of you know, I have a little Gingerbread Village I bring out at Christmas time. Last year I was rushing to finish an ornament in December.  That won't happen this year.  I'm aiming to assemble my first ornament of 2016 at Easter, and still get the Needlework Shop completed in October too.  Don't panic about these photos - they are all the same piece of linen, it's just hard to get consistent brightness to photograph.

finished

finished with room for the vestibule to be attached

not finished yet

I'm working on the final side now

my roof will be red

This is what I work on the evenings in front of TV. You can see the rest of my village here - All patterns are by the super talented Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler.


Oh! Christmas Tree

Pattern by Wendy Williams and available in Simply Moderne issue 3 (by QuiltMania), or directly from Wendy's website here.

I still haven't finished the centre panel for my Christmas Tree quilt yet, but I was missing my sewing machine, so I jumped ahead and made 26 wonky stars for the final border.  Of course they took much longer than I expected, but they were fun because I got to play with pretty fabrics.

If you interested in making this quilt, take a look at Elizabeth's blog Occasional Piece.  She's running a quilt along and even giving away some prizes this week. Elizabeth has spent lots of time writing step by step guides for how to do wool felt applique.  I sent her some of my photos to include in her post.


Sue Spargo Instastitch

Sue Spargo is a super talented lady, and she very generously decided to release a FREE pattern for a mystery block of the month.  I only saw this pattern yesterday morning, but by dinner time I had already chosen fabrics from my stash and sewn the first block.  Now I just need to add the recommended hand stitching embellishments (which is what Sue is world famous for).

the options - all from my stash

my finished block - 16" x 16"

If you'd like to read more you can find the patterns on Sue's blog here.

So that's what I've been up to.  The weather is still beautiful in Wellington. As they say, you can't beat Wellington on a good day.