Quilted Advent Calendar Finish

For my first finish of 2016, I decided to get a head start on Christmas this year by finishing a UFO (unfinished object) that I have had laying around since 2013 😉 I started working on this advent calendar as a part of the Countdown to Christmas Quilt-Along over at Better Off Thread. Well one thing let to another, and then this sucker ended up in a tote in the closet.

I made it using a Charm pack of Kate Spain’s In From the Cold line for Moda, and then pair that with coordinating solids in gray, red, green, and aqua. I posted most of my progress on Instagram, I think in total it probably took me a week to get this thing done. Stitching the appliqued numbers down took the longest, followed closely by the quilting.

With this quilt I wanted to try something different with my quilting. I normally will go with straight lines or an easy all over stipple, but with this I decided to go for pebbles. At first my pebbles looked more like jagged rocks, but once I got the hang of it things went much more smoothly. I love how the overall look is reminiscent of snowballs… or I guess what I think snowballs look like. Living in south Texas = no winter!

This is my first mini that I have added pockets to hang with a dowel rod. I normally just use push pins, but this sucker is heavy to begin with and I know once the pockets are filled with candy it will be even heavier. My backing is a pale green Cotton Couture solid I had in my stash, and my binding is from Kate Spain’s newest Christmas line Jingle.