Life has been too complicated lately. Company, unexpected assignments, everyone knows what that is like. However, in the flurry of it, I kept wandering toward my sewing machine and am finally finished this Christmas quilt. I call it, "And God became a man..."
After making the pattern (see below) I put it together by tracing each piece to what some quilters call "lick and stick" but it is actually Steam A Seam II. Fabric selections were made as I worked (from the top down) using mostly batiks. After they were all in pressed in place, I sandwiched it using fusible batting, then stitched around each piece using invisible thread. That sounds like a chore, but by thinking ahead, I could stitch entire sections without having to break the thread. Who likes trying to thread a needle with that stuff! That secured the pieces (some of them are really small) and quilted it at the same time.
I put facings on the edges yesterday, but still have to hand-stitch them in place. The label and sleeve are done also. I am happy with it!
This one I made for me, but it was a trial run. Our little quilting group at church was asked to make a 7-foot wide quilt to hang in the church foyer. We found an old Christmas card, tried to track the designer (impossible), and decided this was not for profit anyway. It was my job to create the pattern.
I scanned it to my computer and used CorelDraw to outline each piece. I had to make changes in the design. For one thing, the architecture was wrong for the date of Christ's birth. Also, we decided to make it in three panels, so I had to do that to it too. The pieces were scaled to life size and printed in sections, as many together as would fit on a sheet of paper. We purchased fabrics and donated some of our own for the big one, plus I found our "lick and stick" on sale at Joanne's during a recent trip to Idaho. We are nearly finished the middle panel.
I've never seen a quilt constructed like this... but we are having fun!
