Reindeer Mini Quilt

I love a good sewing surprise - I've done swaps, subscription boxes, and Advent calendars in the past - but last year I was intrigued by a new premise: Sugaridoo was going to send a project packaged as an Advent calendar.  Each day, we'd open the package to get the supplies and instructions for the next step.  This sounded like much more fun than a bunch of random notions, plus I'd get fabric!

I breezed through the traditional and paper piecing sections, but then hit a wall when it came to the applique - not my favorite technique.  I put the project down in January when I cleaned up my Christmas decorations and didn't pick it up again until last week.  The remaining applique only took a couple of hours (of course).  And then it was time for the fun part, quilting it!  The pattern called for a cross-hatch over the entire thing, but I love playing with thread and FMQ, so I did my own thing.  Adding to my dislike of applique, my free motion quilting foot would not stitch nicely through the appliqued pieces, so I settled for a simple outline using my regular piecing foot.  Doing the cross-hatching only in the background meant a lot of buried threads, but I went in sections and it wasn't that bad.  In a piece this small, anything (including applique!) is possible!

You can see the different FMQ elements better in the back of the quilt.  I did wavy lines in his head and swirls that could work as Santa's beard in his muzzle.  It's a little stiff from the quilting being so tight, but it's a wall hanging so that actually works in its favor.  I really wanted to use the extra backing from my Fresh Cut Pines quilt to back the quilt, but I didn't have a piece quite big enough so I had to supplement it with this scrap left over from one of the blocks in my Mother quilt.  The Advent calendar came with pre-cut binding, but I used leftover border from the Christmas Memories quilt because I prefer a chunkier binding and I like this color better.

And there you have it, one adorable Christmas mini-quilt!  This last picture is it hanging on display in my family room,  where it will stay until I put out the Valentine's Day mini quilt.  This is my last planned finish for 2024 - if another quilt is done it will be a happy surprise.  Happy Holidays to you and thanks for reading!