This year I joined an online quilting bee that is focused on making improv blocks (blocks that don't follow a strict pattern). You can see a few of the bee blocks that I've made here, and the group's Flickr page here.

We decided that our project for December would be a mini-quilt swap. We were blindly assigned partners from the group and set out to make them mini-quilts and few fun "add-ins." I found my partner's Pinterest page and was able to see recent quilt pics that she had pinned: some of which were "Polaroid Block" quilts. Just a few weeks earlier another group member, Mandy Leins, made a polaroid quilt for Quilt Market. Between the pictures of Mandy's quilt and the Polaroid quilts I was seeing on Pinterest & Flickr...I knew I wanted to make one for my partner. Plus I had a TON of holiday fabric scraps from making fabric gift bags through the years that were going to work perfectly for fussy cutting.

To make the Polaroid blocks I followed this tutorial, and then added more negative (red) space around each block. Once I had the blocks done, I put them on a random angle and trimmed them all to 6 1/2" square (including seam allowance).  I didn't really have a plan for the size of the quilt when I started out; I just picked fabric scraps, "fussy cut" images for the Polaroids, and then started making the blocks. Once I had all my blocks made, I laid them out several different ways and settled on a "big-mini" (wall-hanging?) quilt size. In the end I used 35 of my Polaroid blocks.

The quilt is roughly 42" tall and 30" wide. I used Kona Cotton's "Rich Red" for the background and bound it in a green & white stripe from Me & My Sister Design's "Ready, Set, Snow" collection for Moda.

I backed the quilt in this fun multi-color "Yonder Star" fabric from Alexander Henry, quilted "in-the-ditch" on the inside and outside of each Polaroid, and then added hanging pockets. Now it's time to send it off. My fingers are crossed that my partner likes it!

I'm happy to have another quilt finished!
This is my "Modern Trees" quilt that was inspired by the quilt-along organized by Christa Quilts.  It was a lot of fun to make: this was a quilt that came together easily.  I saw the post talking about the quilt-along, ordered the triangle template that is used to make the tree, had the idea to try slicing my trees to create garlands on my trees, decided I wanted more negative space around my trees...and voila - here is my quilt! Not quite according to the original pattern in the quilt-along, but I love it.  (I will say it was quite difficult to photograph the saturated greens and stark white background fabric.) 

All the fabrics used in the quilt top were found in my stash: various Kona Cotton solids in shades of green and "rich red." The white fabric is some mystery fabric that I found in my cupboard. 

I treated myself to having the quilt long-arm quilted by Plain Jane Quilting, and I love how it the "meandering loops" pattern turned out. I wanted the quilting to look like blustery wind and blowing snow.  I also had her quilt-in-the-ditch around each tree and around the red borders.

The quilt is 64 by 55 inches and is my third finish in my Q4 Finish-a-long!

I decided to keep the quilt for myself and am looking forward to much snuggling under the quilt this holiday season.