Easy Holiday and Seasonal Quilts
Celebrating Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, or Winter Solstice?
When it comes to the holidays, quicker is better. There's so much to do: parties, visiting, travelling, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and decorating. Time is at a premium but it's still worth your while to create homemade, beautiful decorations and much-loved (perhaps keepsake heirlooms) quilts to put about your own home or give as gifts.
If you're not sure that you can complete a quilt in time, here are several ways to speed up your project and still be able to enjoy "peace on earth" this holiday season.
1) Choose any fast quilt pattern -- for example, a Nine Patch or Rail Fence that can be strip-pieced -- and make it with holiday, winter, or other themed fabric.
2) Use pre-printed panels. Slice the smaller ones into "blocks" or use the bigger ones as the complete top.
3) Buy a 1/4 yard piece of fancy, interesting fabric and cut it into a 30 1/2" by 40 1/2" piece. Sew plain (or pieced) borders, until the quilt top is the size you desire.
4) Use no-binding techniques, such as a "pillowcase" turn, or allow extra fabric as the top or backing to sew as the binding. This means you don't have to make the binding separately, piecing it and folding it and ironing it before finally stitching it on.
5) Choose fusible web instead of traditional (and time-consuming) needleturn applique.
6) Buy pre-cut, pre-designed kits that require no extra thinking, planning, organizing, or extra work. You can just sit down at your machine and sew.
7) Choose to do an allover quilting pattern, such as stippling or a big meander, rather than motifs or other quilting.
8) Cut very large blocks, rather than making smaller ones, and make a "one block" quilt. For example, cut nine pieces of fabric (four of one fabric, five of another) 12.5" each to make a lap or crib Big Nine Patch quilt.
9) Don't bother with backing and batting, use a thick fleece panel or fleece length suitable for your project to quilt your top onto.
10) Make a Quick Fleece Blanket and skip the piecing, batting, and quilting altogether.
