Journal Notes

I had an abundance of Christmas fabric (10-1 yard cuts each) that I received as a gift last Christmas. I wanted to pare down some of my fabric so it was time to make a Christmas quilt. Plus, I don’t really have any Christmas quilts. There were a couple of fabrics that shouldn’t be cut up so I searched for a pattern that would work for focus prints. I found this free pattern. It went together very quickly. I still had an abundance of fabric once the top was done. So I cut up the fabrics that I didn’t want to keep into 2 1/2” strips and did a Jelly Roll Race quilt for the back. I have wanted to do a Jelly Roll Race quilt for a while. This was my first. My final backing wasn’t quite wide enough once I was done so I added a strip from my stash of backing fabric to make up the difference. I used this same olive green backing fabric for the binding. I quilted the entire quilt with a meander pattern on my domestic using green variegated thread on front and back. The only problem is that the backing wasn’t quite straight. Oh well! At least it’s on the back and it wasn’t a commission quilt. I will need to be more mindful in the future. My color balance (lights, mediums, darks) wasn’t the best either. I’m just glad to reduce some of my Christmas fabric and green backing fabric (purchased from Ben Franklins) that I have on hand.