2012 Christmas Quilt Show - Scoot, Santa!

I love these virtual quilt shows! Thank you to Michele at Quilting Tutorials for hosting the 2012 Christmas Quilt Show.

The link-up is open until Nov. 30, so if you have a Christmas or Winter quilt to share, why not join in?  :D



 I'm super excited that I finished "Scoot, Santa!" in time to share it.

Making this quilt was a special treat from pre-conception to finish. It was a naughty thing to do, because I'm supposed to be strictly working on UFOs. But I was shopping on Etsy one day for a sweater for our Siamese and when I saw the Santa on scooter fabric, I just about died. You see, everything "scooter" makes me think of my aunt with a big smile. So there was no way I could pass up that yard of fabric, and this became my November NewFO.

So, I gave myself hard-fast rules:  1. It *had* to be sewn into a quilt in time for this year's Christmas; 2. I had to use *only* other fabrics from my stash; 3. I must break a quilting rule - if I was going to be naughty, I needed to get my "rebel" on in full!

Two weeks ago I came up with a concept, and had a most successful dig through the stash.  The execution went off without much of a hitch - I just had a momentary pause when I saw my original road strips laid out and hated how overpowering they were. After sleeping on it, I realized I just needed to trim back the yellow. I couldn't bear to let go of the roads - Santa needed them. Plus, the shape was reminiscent of Santa's buckle.

The broken rule? You see how I put the background greens on the diagonal? Well, I didn't feel like piecing strips to make them long enough, and I sure didn't feel like cutting wide strips on the bias, so I cut them long-wise on grain and sewed them so that the edges of the quilt were all bias. This would really upset some of my older-generation quilt mentors, as it poses several potential problems - stretching as the quilt is pulled on, warping as you're working on it. . .  But I figured it was a smaller lap quilt, so I'd give it a whirl. This is only 48" x 54".

Because of all that bias, I used a ton of pins to baste it - spacing within 3 inches.

For the most part, I did horizontal lines about an inch apart, using my walking foot. Between all those pins, the good amount of quilting, and a heavier-than-usual backing of fine-wale corduroy, I had no problems at all with rippling, and it is very sturdy! 3 strands of gray floss worked perfectly for the hand-quilted  lane lines.

*Love* that backing. It's a gorgeous claret red. Nice and heavy/comfy for a New England or Colorado-mountain home.

The Santas were placed so that their scooters were on the level of the roads, and I did a simple free-motion meander with loops and snowflakes (yes, it was a tad challenging with that corduroy).

And I even had the perfect gold-on-black fabric for the binding~!  I succeeded in all three rules - everything I needed for this project came from stash - all support fabrics, the backing, the batting, and even all the threads.

The best part of all: There was enough of everything to make a twin so we can keep one here in Colorado~! I only needed to splice some batting together.  :D

So now that you've let me share my "Scoot, Santa" before it flies away to its new home, why not go on over to the Christmas Quilt Show and take a look at the many other wonderful projects people are sharing?  :D

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I'm also linking this up as my finish report for this week's Friday and this month's NewFO:

Thanks to these great hosts for superb inspirational link-ups! You should check these places out for more cool projects folks have finished. :D

* Link A Finish Friday at Richard's *