My Leader and Ender project for 2016 is done and has been passed along to the Guild for Community Quilts. I had to get it out of the house because if I kept it much longer I’d be wanting to keep it for myself. It’s been folded and stored in a bag for that very reason – out of sight, out of mind.

I’m not sure why I like it so much – is it that the scraps I used in the quilt are some of my favourites or maybe it’s because I can remember where almost every scrap came from. It was my own design, based on something I saw online, but I can see a few things that maybe should have been done differently. There are a few nine patches that didn’t show up well with the background – specifically in the top right corner.

It took forever to quilt. I outlined all the nine patches and then did a free-motion flower in the background squares. The final border was quilted with a meandering pattern – my go-to design! I don’t know why I went to all that trouble (except it was good practice) because the quilting doesn’t show up on either the front or the back.

I used my own backing for this – I loved the top and none of the backings we had for Community Quilts really worked with it. I used a multi-coloured binding, most of which was left from other projects I’ve bound.

 

The Guild did a demo one evening on how to make these cases. Anything with a zipper is a challenge for me and I can’t say the second one was any easier than the first!

At the time of the demo I thought Will might be able to use a case for his sunglasses because he wears contacts now. When I decided on gift cards for Alex and Will I made a second one (Mickey Mouse for Alex) and stuck their gift cards inside.

 

The pattern for my “cards” this year came from the same magazine as the placemats. The small dresden pieces were done with English paper piecing and then each piece was hand stitched together before being added to the background.

I ended up stuffing the ornaments which proved to be challenging when I put them in the mail. Most came in at a reasonable price for postage but one came back with an “Insufficient Postage” sticker (sorry about that Trevor).

I took that particular card apart and used batting in the centre. I debated about doing some quilting on the front but I decided it didn’t need it. The card is flatter but stuffed with just as much love!