On the 11th day of Christmas...

Featured fabric: Home for the Holidays by Michele D'Amore

Check out our website for several free patterns featuring the Home for the Holidays collection!

Candy Christmas by Janet Page Kessler

Holiday Wreaths by Janet Page Kessler (shown in two different colorways!)

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On the 8th day of Christmas...

Featured fabric: Home for the Holidays by Michele D'Amore

Check out The Crafty Quilter's tutorial for a wall quilt using this beautiful line.

Stop back here each day between now and Christmas to watch our tree fill up with holiday fabrics!

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A Christmas quilt you can still finish this year!

 If you're anything like us, you had grand plans to finish a quilt for the holidays early this year, and it didn't happen. And with Thanksgiving around the corner and December fast approaching, you're probably feeling like it's not going to happen. We can help you change that feeling! Meet the "Boxing Day" quilt.

Wendy Sheppard of Ivory Spring designed "Boxing Day" for The Quilter magazine. This quilt combines super-easy pieced blocks with pre-printed panel squares from Michele D'Amore's Home for the Holidays collection. 

"Boxing Day" by Wendy Sheppard;
featured in The Quilter magazine December 2013/January 2014

Wendy will take us on a little tour of her quilt and design process.

What attracted you to the Home for the Holidays collection? 

The colors - I love the traditional Christmas colors.  To see the palette of the collection come in softer tones was exciting, and I love how the blue was mixed in for a slightly contemporary look.

Why did you decide to mix pieced blocks and the fussy-cut squares together in the design?  

The panel has 6 different block scenes, and since I wanted a larger quilt, I needed something else to fill in the gap, so to speak.

What prompted you to add the solid colored square in the pieced blocks?

After deciding on what pieced blocks to use, I wanted the blocks to reflect the spirit of Boxing Day.  The solid colored squares represent the goodies contained in the "gift boxes."

Can you talk about your layout decisions?

I was trying to use the vertical strip layout to show a slightly different way to incorporate panel and pieced blocks in a quilt.  I wanted the focus to be the quilt center.  Therefore, I didn't use a print for the outer border.  And I intentionally did a relatively narrow outer border to emphasize focusing on the quilt center.  I chose the red narrow sashing to frame the quilt center so that the eye would be drawn to all the interesting details in the quilt center.

What do you like best about this quilt?

The fabrics - the prints are just perfect for a fresh, and yet traditional quilt.

Talk about the machine quilting motif you chose.

I quilted my Jester's Hat motif in large scale for texture.  I didn't want the quilting to take away from the fabric prints. I have written about my Jester Hat motif about here, here and here).

Thanks Wendy! What a great holiday quilt!

See the entire Home for the Holidays collection here. 

Purchase the kit for this quilt here.

Read more about Wendy here and see her post about "Boxing Day" here.

Find The Quilter magazine here.

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Christmas in July Blog Hop: Day 5

It's Day 5 of our Christmas in July blog hop, and our final tutorial. And it's a great one! Julie from The Crafty Quilter has designed a beautiful wall hanging that includes both piecing and applique, using Michele D'Amore's Home for the Holidays collection. Check out Julie's tutorial below, and then head over to her blog to see how you can win a fat quarter bundle for yourself!

Hello! I'm Julie Cefalu, The Crafty Quilter, and I am so glad to be participating in the Christmas in July Blog Hop for Benartex! I designed this beautiful wall hanging using one of my favorite holiday fabric lines, Home for the Holidays. Finished size: 42-1/2" square

Fabric Requirements:

All fabric is from the Home for the Holidays collection by Michele D'Amore.

• Ivory Damask: 1/2 yard
• Light Red Damask: 1/2 yard
• Aqua Damask: 1/4 yard
• Ivory Stockings: 1 fat quarter
• Gold Metallic Dot: 1/4 yard
• Green Metallic Dot: 1/8 yard
• Aqua Flower: 7/8 yard
• Binding: 1/2 yard

Cutting Instructions:

Ivory Damask: Cut (1) 15" square for applique background. From remaining fabric cut (3) 5-1/2" strips, subcut into (12) 5-1/2" squares and (2) 5" squares for pieced border.
 Red Damask: Cut (1) 5-1/2" strip, subcut into (6) 5-1/2" squares for pieced border. Cut (1) 5" strip, subcut into (2) 5" squares for pieced border. Use remainder of this strip for applique. Cut (2) 1" strips, subcut into (2) 1" x 14-1/2" rectangle and (2) 1" x 15-1/2" rectangle for applique border.
Aqua Damask: Cut (1) 5-1/2" strip, subcut into (6) 5-1/2" squares for pieced border.
Gold Metallic Dot: Cut (4) 1-3/4" strips, subcut into (2) 1-3/4" x 22" rectangles and (2) 1-3/4" x 24-1/2" rectangles for inner border.
Ivory Stocking: Cut (2) 12" squares, cut in half diagonally once for setting triangles.
Aqua Flower: Cut (4) 5-1/2" wide strips; Measure quilt top before cutting into the following border pieces: (2) 5-1/2" x 32-1/2" rectangles and (2) 5-1/2" x 42-1/2" rectangles.
 All seams use 1/4" wide seam allowance.

Applique Instructions:

Fold 15" background square in half and in half again; press lightly. Repeat on the diagonal. This will give you placement guides for your applique pieces.
 Using the applique pdf file (click here to download) and your favorite applique technique, make (1) gold star, (4) red star points, (8) green holly leaves, (4) red berries and (1) center circle. a) Place the gold star on the background square so that the points line up on the 90 degree placement lines. b) Add the red star points so that the points line up on the diagonal placement lines and at the center of the star. c) Place one red berry at the diagonal line, 2" from each corner; add two holly leaves extending from each berry as shown. d) Place one aqua circle in center of star.
 
 Applique all pieces in place. I used a turned edge applique technique and stitched with invisible thread and a blind hem stitch. You can find my tutorial for the invisible machine applique stitch here and my tutorial for raw edge machine applique can be found here. Trim the applique square to 14 1/2".

Applique borders and setting triangles:

Stitch the red 1" x 14-1/2" strips to opposite sides of the applique square. Add the remaining two 1" wide strips to the other two sides. Press toward borders.
 Match the center of each setting triangle with the center of each side and stitch in place. Press toward setting triangles.
 
 Trim the center applique unit to 22" square.
 Stitch gold 1-3/4" x 22" inner border pieces to the center applique unit. Add remaining 1-3/4" x 24-1/2" inner border pieces. Press towards inner border.

Pieced border assembly:

1. Draw a diagonal line on ivory 5-1/2" squares. 2. With right sides together, pair up an ivory square with 6 each red and 6 each aqua squares. 3. Stitch 1/4" on each side of drawn line. Cut in half on diagonal line. 4. Press towards dark fabric. Now you have a total of 24 half square triangle units (HST's).
 
  5. Pair up HST's of opposite colors, matching seams. 6. Draw a diagonal line that runs perpendicular to seam. 7. Stitch 1/4" on each side of drawn line. Cut in half on the diagonal line. 8. Trim unit to 4-1/2" square. I used Quilt in a Day's triangle square up ruler which is so nice for trimming quarter square triangles.
 
9. Press seam to one side or as shown:
 
 10. Make four half square triangle units using the (2) 5" ivory squares and (2) 5" red squares as shown. Trim to 4-1/2" square.
 
11. Stitch (6) quarter-square triangle units together, matching seams. Press seams open. Repeat to make four pieced border units. They should measure 24-1/2" long.

Adding borders:

Arrange pieced border units and HST's around the center applique unit. Stitch a pieced border to each side. Press towards inner border.
 
 Stitch the HST's to each end of a pieced border unit. Add to the top and bottom of center applique unit. Make sure to match seams at the corners. Press towards inner border. Stitch 5-1/2" aqua floral border strips to each side of wall hanging. Press towards outer border.

 

Finishing:

Layer, baste and quilt as desired. Add binding and a hanging sleeve to finish it off. Mine is not finished yet, but I'm working on it!

Star Bright Wall Hanging by Julie Cefalu

Thanks, Julie! What a gorgeous wall hanging! (And so nice to have it almost finished with Christmas still 5 months away!) To find out how to enter to win a fat quarter bundle of the Home for the Holidays collection, visit Julie's blog.

If you missed the other tutorials from the Christmas in the July blog hop, click on the links below:

Day 1: Ho-Ho-Ho, Let It Snow advent calendar tutorial, click here.

Day 2: Christmas Spectacular table runner tutorial, click here.  

Day 3: Snowfolk Mantel quilt tutorial, click here.

Day 4: Peppermint Twist pillow tutorial, click here.

And...don't forget to head over to our Facebook page and enter a recipe in our Christmas cookie exchange--we'll be compiling all the entries into a pdf recipe book to share!

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Christmas in July Blog Hop!

We're excited to be kicking off our Christmas in July blog hop of tutorials and giveaways this week, featuring some of our favorite fabric lines and favorite bloggers!

Starting Wednesday, we'll be sharing five tutorials here on the blog. Here's what you'll find:

Wednesday: Benartex blog team, using Ho-Ho-Ho, Let It Snow
Thursday: Debby from Debby Kratovil Quilts, using Christmas Spectacular
Friday: Mary from Mary on Lake Pulaski, using Snowfolk
Monday: Wendy from Ivory Spring, using Peppermint Twist
Tuesday: Julie from The Crafty Quilter, using Home for the Holidays

p.s. In addition to whetting your fabric appetite, we'll be tempting your taste buds as well! Head over to our Facebook page for details on how to enter our Christmas cookie recipe exchange.

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