Just this week, I've had an overwhelming desire to put my Christmas tree up! I always wait until after Thanksgiving, but this year Thanksgiving is so late I feel like my beloved Christmas season will be truncated.
If there’s an itch, you gotta scratch it. So this week, I made a new Christmas throw pillow out of some green scraps and a pretty little remnant of gold-fleck background fabric.
I cut two 2” x WOF (42”) strips of this ombre green fabric. You could also use a variety of scraps that are at least 2” x 5½”. Align the 4½” triangle line (on either the Mini Ruler or the original Large 60-degree Diamond Ruler) along the bottom edge of the strips and the 2½” line along the top edge of the strips. Cut on both sides of the ruler and trim the outside tips off flat.
Rotate the ruler 180 degrees to make the next cut. Continue rotating the ruler every cut, until you get twelve trapezoid cuts like this.
Pair the cuts up in sets of two with different shades on each side for variety. Sew them together and press that seam open. Make six “holly leaves” like this. I laid the leaves out in a wreath design to see how they looked.
Now for the background, cut one 2” strip. From that strip, cut twelve 2” triangles. Align the 2” black star burr line (there is no official 2” triangle line) along the bottom edge of the strip, cut on both sides of the ruler, then rotate the ruler to make the next cut. Trim the outside tips off flat.
Cut a 3” background strip, and from that strip cut six 3” triangles. Align the 3” black star burr line along the bottom edge of the strip and cut on both sides of the ruler. Rotate the ruler to make the next cut. Trim the outside tips off flat.
Here you can see the leaf unit with its adjoining background units. You'll make six larger triangle units like this.
I pressed the seams on the little middle triangles in an alternating pattern, so those seams nest in the middle of the block. Here they are all laid out and ready to sew together.
Join three of the triangle leaf units together pressing the seams open. Make each half of the block, like this, and then sew one final seam to join the two halves together.
I decided to turn this into a pillow, so I used a 2½” background strip to cut two 6” trapezoids and added them to either end.
I cut a pair of 5½” x 8” rectangles, and with the wrong sides facing each other, cross-cut them using the left dashed center line and the 8” black star burr line as markers. These make up the corner fill-in sections to get a hexagon into more of a square shape.
I had to add more border strips around the edges, from the itty bitty scraps I had left to make a 16” pillow.
I knew I wanted to add some red berries to it, so I cut some felted wool I had into little circles about the size of a nickel.
I laid them in a cluster on the wreath as I was quilting it. This subtle look is what I ended up going with, but I had to try a red bow just in case I liked it better. I liked the bow a lot, but I was nervous about the ends of the ribbon unraveling. In the end, I decided on the more reserved winter look rather than the full-blown Christmas wreath look.
I stitched down the felt circles, with matching thread, using my long arm and trimmed it up to add the backing.
Here it is! My first piece of Christmas decor is now officially gracing the living room :) I think I might make three of these wreaths to put together as a table runner!
Happy Sunday everyone,
Krista
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