Christmas Scrappy Trip Around The World Quilt

A tiny while ago, I got a cute message from Amanda asking if I'd make her a Christmas quilt. She's a beautiful quilter herself, but unfortunately had no time to make a quilt in time for the holidays. At first I freaked out a little -- I mean, how do you make a quilt for someone whose work you absolutely love!?!? -- but I got over that really quickly, and said YES! It's just such a privilege that she'd ask ME of all the squillions of quilters we know! My head exploded several times, trust me.

I'm sure many of you know her, and I'm lucky enough to count her as one of my friends. She's one of the most darling people I've ever known, and if I could find a way to shrink her down and put her in my pocket, I so would. Sure, her husband would miss her, but whatever :) 

So she decided she'd like a scrappy trip around the world and asked if I was up for it. Yes, please! I'd been toying with the idea of making myself another one but I definitely of didn't need another. She gave me her quilt size requirements and I thought we could up the block size to 16" finished (that's 8x8 squares instead of the usual 6x6) to properly utilise the jelly rolls of Aspen Frost.

I used the same layout as my own quilt (oops, I just realised I'd never actually photographed the finished quilt!) but instead of putting the dark prints in the middle of the blocks, I used the white prints instead. It looks like a snow trail, doesn't it?! Ahhhh so cute!!!

Look at all the flipping snowmen!!! It's my favourite print of the entire line, and almost every block has them in green, aqua or red. I did a scrappy binding with some of the leftover strips of fabric, and then added a touch more of the snowmen because I cannot help myself.

I free motion quilted holly and swirls in white Aurifil thread all over the quilt by hand. I can't draw to save my life, so hopefully Amanda won't look too closely at them. Ahem. I asked the hubs if those looked like holly, and his response was, "Uhh, I don't know what holly is supposed to look like but that sure looks like something". Why do I put up with him?

For the backing, I used a red snowflake print by Makower Christmas print because I knew how much Amanda loved snowflakes. Seriously, this quilt is too damn cute.

So a thousand colour catchers later, there's the finished quilt! It's one of the hardest quilts to let go of, but it's now off to Amanda! Hopefully she'll spend many cosy hours under it knitting and drinking hot chocolate.

Merry Christmas, Amanda dearest :)