I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas

Yesterday morning it was -5°C outside at breakfast time (23F for you non-metric folks)! Last time I was somewhere that cold, it was Christmas…..

Just to prove how cold it was last night, here is a little tray of water my kids placed out on the verandah last night. Frozen!

With the cold weather, and with several Christmas in July blog hops happening around the internet at the moment and very soon, it is hard not to be thinking about Christmas. And more specifically, the Northern Hemisphere Christmas I had two years ago in Germany and Denmark. While a stinking hot Australian Christmas has plenty of unique and wonderful qualities, there are a lot of Christmas traditions that us silly Aussies cling to that make so much more sense in the cold.

So. I am in the mood to quilt something in cool colours to celebrate cold Christmases, in an early preparation for a hot Christmas…. but I can’t tell you exactly what I am making. Not just yet, because the big reveal is on July 24. That is my day on Carol’s Christmas in July hop at Just Let Me Quilt. I can show you some progress though. It might be a secret, but it’s not that big a secret. 🙂

Quilting in the Outback

The upside to being somewhere that gets so cold at night is this. This is the view from my ironing board first thing in the morning. Arkaroola at sunrise, in Outback South Australia. 

In between working on a couple of quilt projects, Paul’s work and admiring the view, we are helping out a little around the Arkaroola Village. Paul has been providing some tech support and tourist transport, while as a family we have been contributing a little to the local war on noxious weeds.

There hasn’t been enough  rain this year to germinate the Mexican Poppies we normally target, so instead we are helping clear out another evil invader, this dastardly cactus. A single plant can get as big as 3 metres and every piece that breaks off makes a new plant…… Ugggggh!

After a prickly morning, I went back to my ironing board with a view.

Time to get to work on a winter-theme quilt for Christmas. But not just any Christmas quilt, but a Christmas quilt with Island Batik fabrics to fit the Ambassador July challenge. One quilt, two challenges (again 🙂 ). 

The Island Batik July challenge is “Pattern Play: make a quilt that has a secondary pattern”. So the brief I set myself is: make an Island Batik Christmas quilt with a secondary theme of secondary patterns. By the 24th. Piece of cake! Ha!

What is a Secondary Pattern?

So glad you asked. Makes me feel less stupid for having to look it up myself! 

When a quilter talks about a secondary pattern on a quilt, they are simply talking about how some blocks can form new patterns when they are placed side-by-side. This creates a second layer of visual interest, and quite often obscures the boundaries of the original blocks from which the quilt was constructed. You can repeat one block or combine multiple blocks to generate untold numbers of secondary patterns.

One of my favourite blocks at the moment is Winding Ways. 

When you use light and dark fabrics alternately and place lots of these blocks side-by-side, this block creates overlapping circles. Like this:

The Winding Ways block is the primary pattern. The circles are the secondary pattern. And the circles are far more interesting visually than the original single block.

A New Toy for Christmas

I decided a while back that one day I am going to make myself a Winding Ways quilt. So, when I spotted this template set at the Festival of Quilts last weekend, and I had a little prize money burning a hole in my pocket, I bought it. Merry Christmas to me!

But don’t get too excited…. there won’t be a Winding Ways quilt by the 24th. No sir-ee! And besides, Winding Ways is not all that Christmasy unless it’s done in red and green. Which does not appeal to me. So you will have to wait longer (probably much longer) for a full Winding Ways quilt to hit the priority queue.

But in the meantime I am using these templates for a smaller Christmas project that has it’s origins in the Winding Ways block.

So far…..

I have used the “A template” to create several freezer paper templates.

Then I used the “A template” again to cut fabric shapes with a seam allowance and used my favourite turned edge appliqué preparation method to make Winding Ways shapes.

The fabric I am using here is the Whip Cream Cherwell batik from the Victoria and Albert of the latest Spring collection.

I will need 48 of these shapes. Then I’ll arrange them into sets of three to make blocks like the one in this post’s header.

Then I’ll show you more of what I am going to do with them. But not too much. Remember there has to be something for show and tell on the 24th. 

But for now, I have a hungry hand-raised wallaby to meet. 🙂 Talk to you again on Tuesday….unless I hear from you first! hint, hint 

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