Carolina Christmas! A Quiltville Mystery

Quiltville Custom Quilting
http://www.quiltville.com

Carolina Christmas
~A Quiltville Mystery!~
(click here for printer friendly version)

Bring in the Holiday Spirit by sewing through the season!! The quilt center measures an ample 82X82 before borders!

This is a "limited edition" mystery, as the quilt I am making will be appearing in a future book. If you start this project, you will need to follow along and print out the instructions as they are revealed. The project will be available on the Quiltville.com website until June 1, 2010 when it will be retired.

Though I am making this quilt using fabrics from recycled clothing, you can use anything you would like! Not in the mood for a quilt in Christmas colors? Choose any 3 complimentary colors and add a background fabric to it!

I will be posting the first challenge the day after Thanksgiving! So on Friday, November 27th, be watching the Quiltville.com website, or my blog for the link to the first clue! You can also join my "announcement only" email list, Quiltville@yahoogroups.com and receive an email in your inbox when each step is posted. If you like to participate on a list with lots of chatter from other quilters also participating in this mystery from around the globe, our other list, Quiltvillechat@yahoogroups.com might be the list for you! I do hope you plan to play along! Turn on some holiday music (Only AFTER Thanksgiving in my house!) make a cup of tea or cocoa, and quilt in the Holidays with us!

If you are digging through your scraps, you will be pleased to know that most of the units from this quilt will be cut from 2.5" strips! If you are like me, and have a box of 2.5" light squares in your scrap user's system, you can dig into those too!

We will be using the Easy Angle for 1/2 square triangle units and other pieces required for this quilt.

Fabric Requirements:

All yardage requirements are approximate. Yardage may vary depending upon the length of your scrap strips and how many units you can cut from each. This is one of the things I love about scrap quilts! If I run out of one green, I can throw in another!

2 yards assorted greens. Mine will go from a lighter yellow green all the way through to dark pine green.
2 yards assorted reds. I'm using reds all the way from orange red to burgundy.
2 yards gold print. I'm using ONE gold print to tie the scrappiness together.

Backgrounds:
5 yards assorted light prints and shirtings. I'm working in the neutral range of white to cream to beige for a warm aged look in this traditional quilt. You can also choose ONE fabric for your background, and if you are willing to live on the edge....and not playing with Christmas colors, what about trying something daring like black as your background?

Optional Border Fabrics:
The optional pieced border is a wonderful finish to this quilt, but I am putting separate yardages here for it because some of you might not want to go that far with it! But if you are daring, add these amounts to your above yardages. They can be the same fabrics as you have used above, just more of them.

1 1/2 yards assorted greens.
1/2 yard assorted reds.

There is enough extra background fabric in your five yards listed above to do the job!

When each step is posted, it will be linked here and at the bottom of the previous step! Remember, this is not a race and you can work at your own pace. However, if you don't want to find out the next step before YOU are ready, I suggest that you not follow blogs or links of other people's quilts because I can't guarantee what will be out there as soon as we hit the machines!

I'm looking forward to this adventure with you! Let the Holidays Begin!

Click here to get to STEP 1!