A Little Happy Christmas Block of the Month ~ Sneaky Peek

It would seem I am completely rubbish at keeping secrets (don't worry dear family and friends...not those sort of secrets!) but secrets of the fabric and quilty kind!  You may have seen a picture on my Instagram account a few days ago of something I have just started working on.......but in my defence part of the enjoyment for me is sharing the progress of an item and not just doing a grand Ta Da moment!  Well getting to the point...following on from the 'a little happy sew along' to make the Merry Christmas Mini Quilt (if you don't know what I'm talking about click HERE) I received quite a few emails asking if I had any plans for a full size quilt... after mulling it over for a few days, I thought why not, I'm always game for a little Christmas sewing.  I know for me Christmas crafting tends to happen late on in the year, so to be able to spread it out would make sense and for it to be so much more enjoyable.....so I set to drafting some ideas.  

I find it easier to take inspiration from things that have a personal meaning to me and my family.  When I started writing them down, I realised we have quite a few traditions, some from my childhood, some from Andy's and some that we've started for our children.....................we hang our family advent calendar filled with little treats, we like to build a decorate a gingerbread house (and eat all the left over sweets), make salt dough decorations, put a sign out for Santa to please visit us and just to make sure we're not missed...... on Christmas Eve we sprinkle magic reindeer food on our front lawn.  We obviously like to hang up decorations..lots of decorations, but without question this is always done two Sunday's before Christmas, whilst we wear Christmas PJ's and without any question or complaints from the children, Michael Buble sings along in the background whilst the tree is decorated in all its glory!

It's from these and other precious traditions, I came up with the quilt design, it's not 100% set in stone as I type, but in my head I know where I'm going .....

Sewing has started, which for me helps finalise the design.  I'm going for a traditional colour scheme.....think rich reds, sage green, golden yellows, duck egg blues and silvery grey......  and my idea is that the colours and the quilt block designs will give the feel of Christmas rather than using actual Christmas themed fabrics.  A timeless Christmas quilt, that will itself become part of our Christmas tradition as we bring it out year after year.

As with the existing Block of the Month 'A Little Happy Year' the quilt will incorporate some of my favourite techniques, English paper piecing, applique and machine piecing and I'm also planning on incorporating some embroidery on this one....exciting!

I'm planning for the  'A little happy Christmas' Block of the Month to start in February 2017 and it will run for nine months, finishing in October, giving you time before Christmas to layer, quilt and bind your quilt top.  I'm anticipating on it being a lovely lap quilt...perfect for snuggling under in the build up to Christmas.

Sound good........if you would like to register for more information you can do so on the website HERE.

Guess what I'll be stitching this weekend and I hope that your weekend is full of happy stitches too!