January's Project - The Christmas Quilt

This was the last project I worked on before we moved from New York, and I stopped quilting. It's also notable as one of the projects that I worked on solo - not as part of a quilting class.

It started with the fabric. I fell in love with this collection of fabric, and purchased some of just about the whole line in 2003 and 2004. It's called "Holidays in Paris" by Dena & Friends for In the Beginning Fabrics. I had traveled to Paris in 2002, and was still sporting my in-love-with-Paris glow. I had been searching for some Christmas fabrics, because I wanted to make a specifically Christmas quilt to replace the one that normally hung in my dining room, just for the holidays. (I'm one of those people who takes down the year-round wall decorations to hang up Christmas decorations.) The plan was to make the quilt - and perhaps a table runner and other accessories, and this would be the Christmas theme for my dining room. Seven years later - I no longer have the quilt in my dining room, it's in my foyer - so this will eventually be the "theme" for my foyer.

The fabrics themselves are just beautiful. I love the shade of green and red - they are decidedly, un-apologetically Christmas Red and Christmas Green. Running throughout each different design is a somewhat muted metallic gold. And - just to make my heart happy - there is an Eiffel Tower themed fabric, too. Here is the complete selection of what I have:

My first task was finding a pattern that would work well. I started with Thimbleberries - and that's exactly where I found it - in a book called Collection of Classic Quilts by Lynette Jensen.
The "Harvest Patch" quilt's description says "For stunning results, small touches of repeated color provide greater impact for a a collection of multi-colored prints that combine simple shapes into one unified block." It was exactly what I was trying to accomplish: highlight the fabric collection, while keeping a unified look.

I started by editing out some of the fabrics, creating a "story board" and matching up my fabrics to the fabrics listed in the pattern (I usually number them, then write the number in the pattern next to the fabric I'm replacing with my own.)

My story board:

As of January 2010, here is the status of this project:
Five of Twelve complete blocks.
Seven of Twelve incomplete blocks.
The center of each block is an Eiffel Tower fabric piece. I fussy cut (cut them deliberately to show the piece of fabric I wanted to showcase.) to have six that say "Joyeaux Noel" and the other six are a combination of "Paris," "Bienvenue," "Eiffel Tower," and "Mon Ami."
I chose a lattice fabric that needed an extremely precise cut - it was a plaid that wasn't perfectly straight. This is where it stopped me last time. Several times over the years, I had pulled it out - set it up to cut - rotary cutter in hand - and stopped for fear I would waste the whole amount of fabric.
Border fabrics are chosen, but not cut.

So, basically, a couple of blocks and a big stack of fabric next to it:

My goal for this month is to finish the quilt top. I know, I know - that's not a finished project. Well, I'm splitting this one into two parts.

I have good reasons! The piecing is my favorite part. The rest of it - the quilting, binding, etc. - ehh, not so much. I need to get my feet wet again, remember the part I love and do a little refresher for myself. The way this quilt is constructed (strip sets, which I'll talk more about later) is easy and straightforward, with great results.

And the other good reason is that the project I originally chose as my first has already given me a blister, so I'm going to need to work on it a little slower.