Quilts of Christmases Past / Beauties Pageant 316

 

As a kid, I loved seeing all the Christmas trinkets my grandmother would unearth every December, from her vintage reindeer candles to her manger scene. Those items were as much a part of the celebration as the tree or the desserts she contributed to the holiday spread.

Although I appreciated the familiarity of my grandmother’s holiday decor and enjoyed revisiting those objects year after year, it took me decades to realize that I’m not much of a seasonal decorator. And I have tried! I have bought some beautiful and meaningful objects over the years, most of which are still (even on December 13) in boxes in my attic. A few years ago, though, I started making quilts with Christmas and winter themes. Finally, I found my way of celebrating the season.

What you see here are the wintry quilts that live at From Bolt to Beauty world headquarters. It’s worth noting that I enjoyed making them so much that I sewed three of these four patterns twice (the twins were gifted years ago).

All of these patterns have their strengths. From top to bottom, the Christmas trees are a great stash buster, Kate Spain’s Chalet pattern makes the most of fat quarters, Camille Roskelley’s Norway design features big, bold blocks, and Gingiber’s Merrily quilt is an interesting way to use panels of a certain size. To read more about these projects—and to see some of their backs—click on the links below.

• Christmas trees (Amy Smart)
  
• Chalet (Kate Spain)
• Merrily (Gingiber)
• Norway (Camille Roskelley)

If you’ve encountered a winter-themed quilt pattern that you’ve loved enough to make twice, I’d love to hear about it!

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Seeing Stars / Beauties Pageant 315

I have few self-imposed rules when it comes to designing a new quilt pattern. One guiding principle is simple: no star quilts!

Don’t get me wrong—I love a good star quilt. The thing is, so do many other designers, and they’ve done a great job developing some fabulous star patterns. (Camille Roskelley’s Patchwork Sky, Cluck Cluck Sew’s Brightly, and MMM Quilts’ Pop Star come to mind.) 

Of course, rules—even self-imposed ones—were made to be broken. My book, Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts, features two star designs: Myriad and Five-Star Experience. (See pics at the bottom of the post.) Another star pattern of mine, called Twin-Star Cabins, will release in January.

The idea for Twin-Star Cabins originated in Folk Heart, a quilt I designed for the Ruby and Bee challenge for QuiltCon 2025. My quilt was not accepted into the show, but I love it! I am crazy about the palette and the irregularity of the sashing and cornerstones.

Because the average quilter doesn’t like heart blocks the way I do, I started playing with the Folk Heart design and came up with the idea to replace the hearts with sawtooth stars. 

The throw size that I am sewing requires 50 stars. I am making them in candy-colored hues I pulled from Melody Miller’s Carousel collection, which is featured in the mockup at the top of the post and will appear in my sample quilt as well.

All this talk of star quilts begs the question, What’s your favorite star design? I’d love it if you enabled a project for me in 2026 ... Share your recommendations in the comments!

Myriad from Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts

Five-Star Experience from Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts

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• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
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Signs of Life ... And Productivity! / Beauties Pageant 314

In the past ten-plus years of blogging, I don’t think I’ve ever gone three weeks without posting something. For those of you who showed up since October 24 wondering what the heck I was up to (because apparently it was not writing blog posts), I was having fun!

First there was a girls-only vacation to Disney World, followed by days of recovery from the girls-only vacation to Disney World, and then a guild retreat in the backwoods of New Hampshire.

The retreat was a WIP marathon for me. I found that I had multiple projects close to the finish line, and there was nothing like two days in the middle of nowhere to get me to finish them. (More on that sometime soon!) 

But even Disney required some sewing, as evidenced here by the six Hudson pouches I made in advance of the trip. (The pattern, by Sotak Handmade, is available here.) I gifted each amusement-park goer in my party—including my mother-in-law, who couldn’t make the trip—one of these beauties. 

I followed my favorite approach to small projects: I discovered that I had six nylon zippers in my stash. I purchased a pattern that would work with the sizes on hand. I dug around in my drawers for fabric options that coordinated with the zippers and might appeal to the recipients. The result? Six different and lovely pouches!

I cut into two ladybug fabrics I have been hoarding for the endeavor. For my pouch, I paired a bright-red ladybug fabric with scraps of a dark denim-linen blend on the exterior. For another pouch, I used a ladybug fabric as the lining. 

I considered venturing to a local bag-making-supply store to purchase zipper pulls for the pouches but opted to adorn just one pouch with a Sarah Hearts charm I purchased at QuiltCon last year.

I have more production lines planned—not for Hudson pouches, but for other little bags and more thread catchers. My best word of advice on that subject is to minimize thread changes. Nothing slows down production more than stopping to replace a spool or bobbin, so I stuck with cream or pale gray for all of these gifts. : )

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter