12 Days Finally Quilted

A WIP no more! This is what its all about: and this is what I had in mind when I designed the 12 Days of Christmas Wall Hanging all those years ago (two years? three years? I can't keep up with myself!). What I wanted was a festive quilt for hanging in December and enjoyed for the month ahead. Finally, I've finally done it. And I had just the corner for it too, above this small cabinet of drawers. It's a good spot for displaying those Christmas trinkets. This 'shelf' is actually a display of items which haven been sent to me in friendship from all over the world, so it has a special spot in my heart and I love walking past it.

here I was last Wednesday and yes, it feels good to call it done

 I went for simple lines based on the existing shapes

 for my tree baubles, I used decorative buttons

and simply stitched a loop of the bauble tip

 For the background, I created diamonds to mimic the tree

 I love this pop of candy stripe for the binding, it really lifts the whole quilt, colour wise

simple lines to accentuate the dove which I love most of all from this wall hanging

I'm already thinking of 'new baubles' for my tree. I do love the 12 Days of Christmas, but I also love the idea of changing them each year, With the button and loop system, its so easy to do. And you could even hang real baubles from the tree. My DD has started silk ribbon embroidery and I'm hoping that in the year ahead, she might ribbon up 12 large red roses on the same bauble shape for hanging, I think that would be a beautiful change. Of course, I think family photos using the transfer fabric could work too. There are really so many ways to adapt the wall hanging. And for those of you lucky enough to have an embroidery machine, the possibilities really are endless!

It's too late to do this year, but I do think that from next year onward, I might start designing 12 new designs for this tree until I've exhausted all my ideas. 

Quilting:
Because my Bernina 820 has been really playing up, it took me three days to quilt this wall hanging. To be honest, with quilting this basic - it could be done in 12 hours and for me, that's one day of quilting.

I'm going to do a separate post on quilting with the Bernina 820 in the New Year ( I just don't have time before then) to cover what threads to use. Unusually, the 820 hates most threads, including most Aurifil which is my go to thread so its been a real challenge to get anything quilted on this machine at all. Like I always say about the 820, it should never have been released onto the market, its not fit for purpose. Everything is a 'work around' with this machine. It really ruins the enjoyment of quilting.