Christmas Trip Around the World

My mother in law is coming for Christmas, and I have less than a week now to finish a quilt for the guest bed from scratch.  I know, you will all think I am crazy (and maybe rightfully so, LOL), but I decided to do a Trip Around the World quilt for the guest bed in Christmas colors.  Remember the Quick Christmas Project posted yesterday using the cylinder method of quilting? This technique is also used for this pattern on a larger scale.  It was easier and faster than I thought it would be, and the picking out of some seams didn’t create rips in the fabric.  So now, the goal is to get one done before she arrives.  I have all this Christmas fabric to use up, and this seems like a fast way to make a festive accent for the room.    So, what do you think of these fabrics?

Trip Around the World is a classic pattern for quilts.  I started the piecing last weekend, and if I can get busy this week, I just might get it fully quilted and bound before she arrives.  That’s the goal!  I started with 3-1/2-inch wide strips of my chosen fabrics because I wanted a larger quilt.  Jelly roll strips might do well here if you have enough of each color.  I cut all the strips, then made notes as to the order of the prints (numbering them one to eight) so I could sit and sew strips chain style.  I used four strips of each color, sewn together in the same order to make four strip sets.

I pressed toward the even numbered strips. This will make nesting seams easier.

Then complete the tubes by sewing the long ends together.

They won’t all be the same length, but that will not matter.

Now, take a deep breath, and cross cut the tubes into square-strip sets.  Use the same width as your original strips.  For mine, this was 3-1/2 inches, for a jelly roll it would be 2-1/2 inches.

I started taking out seam lines between specific squares to start the pattern. First was to separate #1 from #8.

Then #2 from #1

Sew those together.  See how the squares offset by one?

Unpick the next one one square over.

Continuing on, constructing the upper left area first.

I discovered a time saver, leave the pins in after you sew the row, and just move them up to the next row. Saves time taking them out, putting them back in the pincushion and then picking them up again.

On the lower half, the squares go the other direction.

Left side done!

The right side of the pattern used only seven of the eight squares.  Here’s most of the right side.  Still only a few rows to go!  You can see a little star post-it note I used to keep me reminded of which end was the top.  There’s one on the other side too.

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I pressed the left side seams between the rows towards the top. The right side seams were pressed toward the bottom, so they would nest with the other side. Piecing done on the squares portion. Now for some borders.

The first border is the red print.  Measured as per the standard way, and applied.

Sometimes I use the longarm rail to do the measuring and pinning. Two more borders in cream and deep green.

I like this quilt more and more every time I add the next element.

Here’s a close up of the corner.

Now, loaded onto the frame for quilting, I’ll work on quilting a little each day.

It took two and a half days to get to this point.  If I can finish quilting on Saturday, and bind it on Sunday, I’ll have it on the bed with days to spare!  But likely, I’ll still be doing the handwork up to the day she arrives which is Wednesday, Dec 16th. Wish me luck!

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See the finish – HERE

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