A Christmas Quilt!

Aren't you pleased that I waited until December 1 to post a Christmas quilt? I do not appreciate the interwebs freaking me out about the remaining shopping/baking/decorating/crafting days starting in September. So I waited.  Just for you.

Pieced at Loon Lake 2014, basted shortly thereafter and finally quilted at Loon Lake 2015! I think this is one of the most clever log cabin quilts ever. The quilt was on the cover of Quilt Now magazine last year; the pattern is by Jessie Fincham of MessyJesse on Instagram.  Jesse was one of the lovely UK quilters I met when I travelled to London for the Fat Quarterly retreat a couple of years ago.

I enjoyed using some treasured scraps for the blue and green logs and pearl bracelets for the cream background. This quilt was a great colour exercise for me. It turns out that I often chose fabric thinking it is green, when actually it is yellow. I had to carefully extract a few yellow strips from the middle some blocks and replace them with a more vibrant green in order for the contrasting blue/green sections to show up.  Jessie made her original quilt with solids and tone on tones, I think.

I had a great time free-motion quilting this on my new Juki 2010. I had absolutely no issues which was so great for a change!  In the cream and green areas I did a fairly close stipple and in the blue areas I did the interlocking clam shell-paisley thingy.  It seems to be in every single FMQ'ing book with a different name in each one.  I think I'm gradually getting my FMQ mojo back with this machine that doesn't cause me as many problems as my old one.

I took a poll at retreat and the washi print from Cotton & Steel's Tinsel line won out for the binding. It is a fun print to bind a cream border with because the washi tape colours show up as random little dashes in the binding.

Ok, so here's the thing. I thought I would try wool batting for the first time on this fairly small wallhanging (I think it is around 36" square). It definitely made FMQ a breeze. I'd been told that wool batts were totally washable by a few people who have used them before. I washed this little quilt in my front loading washing machine (no agitation) on the gentle cycle, squeezed the water out, rolled it in a towel and then blocked it on my carpeted floor to dry. After it was all dry, I picked it up, marvelled at how perfectly flat the blocking made it, then noticed that it's completely FUZZY. Like, it needs a shave, fuzzy. The wool batting is bearding all over the place, not just at seams (that are, as you might expect, pressed to the side) and stitches, but it's actually coming out of the fabric. I'm so happy I didn't put it in the dryer! Has this happened to you? 

Isn't it the cutest wreath?! I'm excited to gift this for Christmas, fuzz and all.