So close...and yet so far...

My Christmas quilt, Frolic is moving along...not completely at a snails pace...but not speedily either? 

I've been working on the largest panel, The Christmas Village, and it's taken a good amount of time.  It's a tricky piece because it's 50.5 inches long.  Which is a lot of fabric that you have to hold folded up in your hands.  And then to try and sew!  Uhhhggg!  Painful.  The other problem is that parts of the trees and tall buildings extend above this panel into the panel above.

But it's not that simple, no it isn't.  Because I can't sew that upper panel until I've completed this lower panel due to the large and unwieldy size...so let's just say, I had to get creative.

The instructions say to sew as much of the lower panel as possible before sewing on the top panel.  Okay.  So this is what I did to help make it more manageable.  After I got my pieces in place and ironed on (I am using fusible web), I folded up the side that I wasn't working on.  So instead of twisting and turning 50.5 inches, it was more like 10.  Much easier.  I then sewed it a bit at a time, folding and refolding the excess fabric, on both sides as I went.  Beware of piercing your flesh due to excess pins all over.

Notice how parts of this are hanging off the top.  That's what I'm talking about.  Tricky.

I simply sewed up to a point where I felt I could safely fold down the tops and not have them get caught in the sewing machine when I sewed the other panel on.  Worked great!  I cut it a little close a few times.  Phew!

The other difficulty I had was, it's seriously thick with the fusible web.  Not only am I sewing through 4 or 5 layers of fabric at times, but then you also are sewing through the adhesive...while holding onto 50.5 inches of unwieldy quilt panel!  I had to be creative.  The Mister wonders why I prick myself so much with the needle.  Because you're supposed to.  How else am I supposed to know if the needle is in the right position and ready to shift upwards?  Huh?  He is concerned for the health of my pricking finger.  It's pretty rough and calloused.

Buildings are mostly tacked down and looking cute.  Time for snow...another tricky situation...

There are snow banks that go up and down around the buildings and trees.  Some things are placed higher than others, so I didn't want to run into the situation where my snow didn't go high enough.  I cut out a large piece of my snow fabric and pinned it on, making sure that it was high enough everywhere!

With my pattern as a guide, I drew on where I wanted my snow to bank and proceeded to cut.

I think sewed it on using my sewing machine.  This is really a mutli-sewing-method project.  turn under applique, machine applique, and blanket stitch by hand.  It's okay, you don't hardly notice a difference.  It all looks cute.

Now sew the upper panel.  Do you see those blank green spots.  That's where the tops of trees and buildings go.

Pin down your tops and start praying...as you can see this is where I went a touch too close to the top. But it worked out.  Then pray that when you iron your seam allowance flat that you will also iron your tops in the correct spot.

Here is everything hanging on my project wall.  Sorry it's so dark, it's down in the basement.  But as you can see I now have the bottom panel all sewn together.  Now I just have to add the embellishments and faces on the snowman and I will be 1/3 done with the top.  I mean, come on!  That's amazing!

Quilting with excitement.  Christmas is coming!

Thanks for reading!

Heather