Christmas dishes

Unseasonal, but the first finish of the year and therefore worth posting and celebrating. I think I've mentioned before how this quilt had a mind of her own. The red triangles and the lights were cut separately for another quilt and only once they were discarded did they find themselves 'thrown together' on the cutting table, and something clicked. Once I began sewing them together the broken dishes block came to mind, more triangles were cut and without knowing where the quilt was headed I continued sewing.

The quilt was quietly confident, but I had my doubts all the way. I kept playing with the setting but in the end the blocks were set and then the quilting doubts began. I wanted the blocks to dance, and added the whirligigs to that effect, fretting about which direction they should turn, and then the lines - too fine, too plain? At the very end of the quilting I even thought of cross-hatching, tried and unpicked, thought of adding some extra lines in the whirligig because to 'fill' them up. I faltered over the binding - should I have used the same fabric as the blocks.

In the end, I've left it just the way it is. I love the way the whirligigs dance, the way the diagonals give a sense of movement, the empty spaces are just fine when you see the quilt as a whole. The binding makes it interesting, it's not quite a two colour quilt (in fact there's a third colour in there too).

An early Christmas quilt, or late, depending on how you look at it. This one's destined for my bedroom wall, for some holiday cheer all year round.