I’ve been working on a new Christmas quilt called Christmas Figs. I started with a fat quarter bundle of Moda by the same name, and then I added in more reds and greens from my stash.

I cut the first few blocks before I went to a retreat in September. They looked a lot like the blocks in the book.

I didn’t feel a need to make them look different. But as I made more and more blocks, I began to wonder if they were interesting enough for my taste.

A few blocks had enough going on with the piecing that they didn’t need anything more. The Feathered Star below is an example.

Another one is the lily block below. It has movement, it’s asymmetrical and it features applique. Plenty happening without more fabrics to clutter it up.

But when I came to this Flying Geese block, it seemed like a perfect time to introduce some scrappiness.

I liked the effect of using many fabrics. I decided to push forward with “scrappy” as my goal.

I scrapped up the Nine Patches a bit, but if I had it to do again, I would arrange them more randomly. Nothing kills scrappiness like placing things carefully. If scrappy is to work, random has to rule.

Gentle scrappiness on the Bow Ties worked all right. Probably should have placed more randomly (again).

I reined myself in for this Goose in the Pond block. The ditzy background print adds plenty of busyness and I didn’t need any more.

Peppermints were a good excuse to pull out all the scrappy stops once again. I like the effect.

Little schoolhouses went together without a hitch and there were no templates. Such a great little block, it never gets old. I used eight different fabrics.

I love the Rolling Stone block but it was a challenge because stitch-and-flip and I are not friends. Sometimes we are mortal enemies.

I used just one green and scrappy reds for the tree block above.

Birds in the Air turned out fine. See how the red is directional? You can decide whether the patches should all be oriented the same way, or all different as I did. There is no right or wrong way, but you should be aware of directional fabrics because then you can control them.

One more star, one more directional background print. There are 20 blocks in all. I enjoyed the piecing because it kept changing. The project held my interest from start to finish.

I made a big mess of my studio while sewing them all together. I got mixed up on the placement of the cornerstones and had to take a couple of rows off. Not a happy afternoon.

I’m debating about whether to add the final cream border. This quilt is going into a trunk show, and human holders at quilt guild meetings get along better if the quilts aren’t humongous. But I think the Jingle Bells Trunk Show is going to benefit from this beauty. Soon I’ll send it off to my longarm quilter Julie Lechner. She’ll do something wonderful—she always does.

I did all of the piecing on my HQ Stitch 510. I just love that machine.