This quilt has been worked on for ten years! Isn’t that crazy? There are fabrics in the quilt that are 12 years old and some that are current designs from this year!

I designed the first block for this quilt, the Vintage Skier, a decade ago. It was my first “for purchase” foundation paper pieced design.  I added to my collection of Christmas/Winter blocks each year, designing one or two more.  It became a fun tradition that I looked forward to each year.  I knew my end goal was to join the blocks together in a scrappy, alternate grid layout.  I hadn’t planned any more than that.  I intentionally designed my blocks in a variety of sizes to help me achieve my ultimate layout goals.  In 2021, I decided that it was time to finish the quilt.  It was a bittersweet decision but I was running out of new ideas for blocks!  Coincidentally, my quilt ended up with 24 blocks which I think is really cool—it’s like a countdown to Christmas!

I even bought this beautiful linen backing almost a decade ago because I was sure that it would be perfect for the quilt, and it is! The lovely quilting was done by Karlee. I am really delighted with the quilting and happy to not have to quilt this one on my domestic machine because the linen backing is really shifty and I think it would have caused me problems! The pantograph is called Diamonds are Forever.

I decided to share my alternate grid layout for this quilt for free. The block patterns must be purchased separately but the layout itself is my gift to you. It’s pretty complicated and I hope you will appreciate having it all figured out for you. Please visit my shop to download the PDF.

I am just so happy to have this quilt complete now. Even though I enjoyed looking forward to adding blocks to the stack each year, it felt right to finish it this year and I have no regrets.