While I can spend hours thread-painting a detail on one of my critters, I have the patience of a flea when it comes to functional patchwork quilts. So it was that I found myself staring at a pattern for my beloved Basic Grey 🎄collection of a few years ago…which called for a bazillion HSTs. The only sensible thing to do was to tear up the pattern and go rogue!
Once I got the piece onto my long arm, I decided to have some fun with thread. Any number of colors would have worked…but I decided to go for a candy cane effect. Red and white went through the needle, red in the bobbin.
Next, I stared at the tin of Christmas cookie cutters that had gone into retirement when I became an empty-nester. Using a Frixion marking pen, I traced candy canes and angels and snowflakes in random places, then carefully stitched over them (connecting with a basic lasso stitch). So much fun! And the quilt was finished before Christmas that year ;).
Tomorrow’s topic, a holiday reading suggestion: a very cozy mystery from one of my favorite authors (and friends :)!)
PS You can, of course, have fun doing organic shapes such as holly and Christmas trees while stitching freehand…
neonkittyquilts 
Did I miss the whole piece? If you didn’t piece HSTs, what pattern did you use? and BTW brilliant idea for the quilting!