Another Quick Christmas Project

Christmas fabrics are taking over my sewing room, and I wanted to use a new technique to use some up.  I eventually want to do a Trip Around the World quilt, just because I haven’t ever done one.  The construction uses a cylinder technique, where you sew all your strips together into a tube, then cross-cut into strips again with rows of squares.  Starting this with a small project seemed like a good idea, just in case I didn’t like it.  Better to find that out with a table topper than a full size quilt, right?  So, starting with some 3-inch wide strips, I sewed them together.  Jelly roll strips work wonderful in this quick project.  You can use whatever number you like. I ended up with six strips, alternating red and green prints.

Pressing towards the greens will make nesting easier.

Then, the strip sets were sewn into tubes and cross cut into 5 square-strip sets, the same width as your strips.  In other words, if you use a jelly roll strip, cross cut into 2-1/2-inch strip sets.  If you use a full Width of Fabric you’ll get a lot more.  I was using fat quarters.

Pick out one seam to begin, and then pick out a second seam on the next strip set that is one square away from the first one.

Sew those together, and continue until all the strip sets are used. Add borders if you want them.

I had this cute holiday dogs fabric for the back. The holiday theme here too make the little toppers reversible.

I loaded them on the longarm side by side, so I could just keep quilting across and get both done quickly.

I stitched down the edges before starting. You can do this on a DSM too, a simple SID, or an x-pattern diagonally through the center of the squares would look nice.

Keeping in mind that I wanted them reversible, I used a tone-on-tone red matching the border on the binding.

All done! Here’s the pieced side.

And the back looks good too with the red border.

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Want to do a quick quilt along?  Click on Christmas Table Topper for a fast and easy project in 4 steps.  Links at the end of each post take you to the next step.

Hope you are having a fun holiday season!  Are you sewing holiday projects?