Hi friends!
Today I want to share a project I finished recently
that was designed by one of my Instagram friends, Jessica Dayon.
always amazed at her proficiency and creativity!
She is so generous with the number of free patterns and quilt-alongs
she offers and she truly has a great eye for design.
Last year Jessica offered this sampler pattern called the
Holly Jolly Block of the Week. She used the Holly Holiday fabric line
by Christopher Thompson for Riley Blake. The pattern was offered through a free
quilt-along Jessica hosted and the pattern is still available on her blog HERE.
I decided to go a completely different route than Jessica and use blues, creams, and
browns instead of traditional Christmas colors. I had in my stash, this Nature's Basket
layer cake by Blackbird Designs for Moda that I wanted to use. I love seeing how different
a pattern can look through fabric/color choice!
I also pulled a lot of coordinating fabrics from my stash
to make it extra scrappy!
I found it helpful to tape the blocks to my wall so I could
determine color placement as I went. There were so many fabulous
block patterns included in this pattern. I would love to make full quilts
out of several of them.
Sampler quilts provide a great opportunity to learn and stretch our skills!
I seriously LOVED making each and every block!
You may have noticed that this flower block is not in the original version of the
Holly Jolly Block of the Week. I omitted the 3 tree blocks and used this pattern
that an Instagram follower sent me. She used one of Corey Yoder's flower patterns with my
Summer Stars block as the center! I appreciated her sharing the idea with me and
think it turned out pretty cute!
Two other changes I made to the pattern -
1. I kept the week 6 Peppermint Bark blocks as Pinwheels (not peppermint candies).
2. I enlarged the outer border from 3" finished to a 5" finished border so I could
use up the last of the light blue floral fabric I had in my stash.
I had my awesome quilter, Jen Ostler in Highland, Utah quilt it with an all-over
swirl and feather design called Citrine. Sometimes I lean towards custom quilting
on a sampler quilt but I think the all-over quilting keeps the focus on
the quilt blocks instead of the quilting. I'm really happy with the quilting on this. Thanks Jen!
For the back of my quilt, I used this tan and white plaid fabric that
I received from my grandmother after she passed away. I love it and
think it's perfect for this quilt!
(I just have to throw in this cute picture of my sweet dog Molly in front of
my Holly Jolly quilt. She's my little sidekick.)
I absolutely loved making this quilt and I'm so happy
with the way it turned out. I highly recommend it if you're looking
for a way to try out lots of different blocks and expand your skills!
Visit Jessica's blog HERE for this free pattern and many more!
Thanks for stopping by today!