Here are some little wall hangings I made as Christmas gifts for some friends. I had seen lots of adorable (real) chalkboard signs online and thought I could make a cute quilt that looked like a chalkboard. I was right. :) In the beginning I was going to make just one bigger quilt (and probably still will next year!), but then I decided to make a bunch of smaller ones. Lines from Christmas songs seemed a festive and simple choice, so I asked a few of my good friends to tell me their favorite Christmas song. It was fun to hear all their different favorites and I thought it would be so easy to just make a little design for each one. Boy was I wrong! I downloaded a bunch of fonts but then realized I was way out of my league. So I called my amazing design goddess sister-in-law Michelle and begged her to have mercy on my poor chalkboard-art-challenged soul. So she did the layout of all of these for me. (Thank you, Michelle!) I thought I would applique all the letters on-until I saw how small some of the letters were...holy cow. So on to plan B...I printed them on fabric at Spoonflower instead. Love love love spoonflower! Didn't love the rush fee I had to pay to get it done quick, but that's what I get for not figuring all this stuff out sooner. Live and learn.
The dimensions of each is 12 x 15 inches. I made them this size to match the size of the quilt hangers I had my eye on. I ordered them from Nancy's Notions, and they were pretty reasonably priced and super cute. Yay! They had lots of other styles and sizes too. Anyway, this quilt was for my sweet and calm friend Christy. For the quilting...this is the one where I pretended I knew how to McTavish. He he he--I don't. ;) My brain doesn't think very far in advance so I either stop every 3 seconds to figure out where to go next, or I don't stop and then make it look goofy. Luckily, I don't aspire to be a free motion quilting superstar, so my self-esteem is still intact.
These were so easy and fast since all I had to do was quilt and bind them and attach a hanging sleeve. This one was for my fun lawyer friend, Maren. Her favorite song is a beautiful one titled, "Were you there on that Christmas night?" It took me a bit to figure out which line of this song to use-I wanted a meaningful line that didn't require a lot of explanation. The first draft of this one was missing a couple of words ...so a second draft was made. Unfortunately, I accidentally used the first draft and didn't even notice until after the fabric was printed (dang it!). For the quilting on this one I just did simple 1/2 inch straight lines and echo quilted around most of the letters.
This next one was for my always well put together and highly amusing friend Valerie. I was glad she chose this song--it is one of my favorites as well! So classic! I quilted this one with a simple feathery design-which I was not awesome at, but it was so much more forgiving than the McTavishing!
This one comes from the song, "Do you hear what I hear?" It was for my cute friend Tessa. This was another one I had to think a bit about to choose a good line to use. For the quilting, I did a random tight crosshatch that I made by zig-zaging diagonally in both directions. I loved the way this design turned out so much I used it twice!
This one was for my friend Christine. She is my quilting buddy and knew what I was up to, so it wasn't really a surprise for her. Can you spot the typo? Another one I didn't catch until after the fact! Let's just hope that most people don't really know how to spell! :) This one was quilted with simple echoing wavy lines.
And the last one was for my friend Kellie, who I am trying very hard to turn into a quilting buddy! :) She loved hers so much, and I was glad! I did the cross-hatch quilting on this one too.
Merry Christmas everyone!!
