I finished Block 2, Christmas Tree Farm, for the I Wish You a Merry Quilt-A-Long almost two months ago but haven’t been able to write about it.
I’ve purchased small yellow star buttons to add to the tops of the trees after I’ve quilted the top.
This cute block pattern was designed by April at Janda Bend Quilts and can be found here (scroll down the post and click on the box that says “Download Block 2 Pattern”) if you want to make one. The patterns are free until midnight on January 15th, 2018 so don’t delay, download yours today.
This Christmas Tree Farm pattern comes with two methods to make it: template or paper piecing.
I chose to paper piece the trees but first I had to make the red and white stripe fabric. I didn’t have any candy cane fabric so I made some using 3/4″ wide strips. The stripes are 1/4″ wide.
I chose not to paper piece the trunks.
I followed the directions for cutting and strip piecing the trunks under the template portion. (Sew a 1″ strip of trunk fabric between two 1″ background strips. Press seams. Cut 1″ strips and trim to 3.5″ in length. Sew to bottom of tree.)
Are you Quilting-A-Long?
It’s not too late to start sewing along with us. For inspiration check out the I Wish You a Merry Quilt-A-Long Facebook page or #iwishyouamerryqal on Instagram. I’m still catching up with the first block and the final two are yet to be released.
Grand Prize Alert
At the end of the QAL there will be a link to download a picture of your finished quilt. To be eligible for the grand prize, you must make a quilt top using all twelve of the QAL blocks by January 16th, 2018. Thank you to all these sponsors for prizes.
Here’s all my blocks so far.
To find info on where to get the patterns, view my blocks, and read some construction tips, click on my links below.
- Block 1 – I am still working on block one. You can find the pattern for block one-snowflake here.
- Block 2 – Christmas Tree Farm here
- Block 3 – Santa’s Belt here
- Block 4 – Christmas Memories (ornaments) here
- Block 5 – Snowman here
- Block 6 – Angel here
- Block 7 – Poinsettia here
- Block 8-Presents here
- Block 9-Reindeer Games here
- Block 10-Christmas Lantern here
If you want to see the other hosts version of this block, click on the links below.
- Abbie at Sparkle On
- April at JANDA Bend Quilts Here’s the creative designer behind this second block in the I Wish You a Merry Quilt-A-Long. You’ll find the pattern on her site as well as a full tutorial.
- Becca at Pretty Piney
- Bobbi at Snowy Days Quilting
- Diane at Cwilt Fabrics & Haberdashery
- Jennifer at The Inquiring Quilter
- Laura at Slice of Pi Quilts
- Sandy at Sandy Star Designs
- Sherry at Powered by Quilting
- Vanda at Quilt in Piece
Block Release Schedule
- Block 11 – November 21, 2017
- Block 12 – December 5, 2017
- Setting Instructions – December 5, 2017
What I Learned Today:
- I love the heat! The outside temp was 88 degrees yesterday and 84 today here at our Arizona home. It feels wonderful.
- Our little cactus in our AZ yard must have missed us this summer. Something happened to it’s new arm since we left in the spring. It’s now sprouting two and the one growing when we left is lying on the ground. The cactus now stands one foot tall including the two new arms. The fallen arm is one foot tall not counting the floppy ears. You can read more about this little cactus and how it came to be here.
- We will have lemons this year. Our new tree is full!
- I have a larger stash of fabric in this house than I remembered. I’ve had to go buy some plastic totes to store it in as I brought some fabric with that I bought on the 2017 Quilt MN Shop Hop this summer (loot posts are still coming).
- I’ve added blog visitors from 5 new countries in the past two days. Welcome!
- I need to be more careful when I stage a photo. The paper pieced pic above is staged. I notice that I have the seam guide on my machine still attached and the needle is set to go down the wrong seam. I should be sewing A1 not A3 first. This might also explain why I had some difficulty getting my candy stripes to all go the same direction.
I’ll use these “wrong way” ones on the back.
- It’s been awhile since I’ve learned this much in one day!!
Question: Do you decorate a real Christmas tree or do you use an artificial one? We usually decorate a nine foot artificial tree in our ND house but one year we brought in a real evergreen tree (actually an overgrown bush that had to be cut down anyway) and during decorating we found a bird’s nest-we left it. A few years ago when time and energy were in short supply, we put lights around an artificial palm tree. I think we’ll be doing that again this year.
Thanks for stopping by and do come again.
Karen, Tu-Na Quilts
If you enjoyed this post and would like to read more about my journey or follow me by email, Bloglovin or WordPress, please visit my blog, Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats.
Linking to:
Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River
Let’s Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts
Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication
Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter
WIPs at Silly Mama Quilts
Friday Foto Fun at Powered by Quilting
Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilt
Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats 
Hi Karen,
I knew you were doing something special for your tree block. I did not expect you to be making your own fabric! I really love the stripes, and never in a million years think to make my own candy cane fabric. I do wonder what happened to your cactus, and I guess we’ll never know for sure. You learned a LOT during this post – I hope you have no more revelations today or you may not be able to process it all. Ahh, 84 and 88 sound heavenly right about now when it is dreary and cold here in Illinois. ~smile~ Roseanne
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This was my favorite block so far in the quilt along.. Love your colors.
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Cute little trees! We have an artificial tree that we decorate. I have learned today that I am procrastinating… I need to be in my studio getting things ready for the show in two weeks. – so far I have vacuumed the basement, put away clothes, fiddled with my blog for tomorrow and did grocery shopping! I need to go… go now! LOL
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Adorable. Great job! Micki@2dogsstudio.us
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I really like those candy cane trees! I’ve only made the first block (snowflake). We’ve never had a real tree, just artificial ones. When I first moved out, my parents gave me their old tree–it was silver. We couldn’t put lights on it, but there was some sort of rotating light that you set next to it that turned it different colors.
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I love your fabric choices – fantastic!
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Stunning, as always! I really like the candy stripe trees. We currently have an artificial tree, but for many years we had real pine….. as I was growing up it was a branch off one of the trees used a wind break on the farm. Once I got married, every year hubby and I used to get one of the feral candle pine seedlings that had to be removed from a local reserve. Last year living in Germany we had a real fir. That was a treat. The smell of pine always reminds me of Christmas!
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So glad you are there where it is warm! It is windy and very chilly here today. It is a family tradition for us to go cut a tree, bring it home, and decorate it. That’s getting to be more of a challenge now that our kids have grown.
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Wendy when I first saw those trees I thought they were out of strip fabric. You strips look so crisp and perfect. Beautiful block, I think my favorite so far. Now that it is just the Hubs and I we haven’t put up a tree in years. I had a dog who was aging and didn’t like the tree. Will be our first Christmas without her and we are thinking maybe we need to get that artificial tree out of the box. Not yet, maybe after Thanksgiving.
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It was perfect to use stripes for the trees! Lovely block. Thank you for linking up to Wednesday Wait Loss.
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I love your striped little trees! They turned out so cute:)❤️. What? You are an Arizona girl?! I am too! Warm weather is the best. I wore shorts and a light jacket to my son’s T-ball game last night❤️. I would love to get together and talk Quilting sometime!
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Looks like your cactus just found the right spot to grow! My son brought home with a prickly pear cactus arm, which he put in a big container – it’s all his! And if you find some good recipes for the lemons, do post! I’ve got some to use up.
Love the trees and the whole quilt – it’s coming along nicely!
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Fussy cutting, my word, no wonder those red and white candy canes all matched perfectly .I didn’t realise you had made the stripes as well. Yes, I am looking forward to the last 2 blocks, some of mine are not the exact size, so will need to add sashing, maybe trim the slightly larger ones to all the same smaller size. Goodness knows how that happened!!!And no tree, either real or man made, we always had a tree when the girls and the grandies were young.
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I love your controlled color scheme! Mine is totally scrappy, as I didn’t want to buy anything for this project. The tree block is one of my favorites. I love that you made your striped fabric!
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That is just hte cutest little Christmas SAL quilt! It looks like a lot of fun!
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Lovely trees, especially the candystripe fabric you made. Love the red and white on grey colour scheme, it’s going to be a wonderful quilt.
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Oh! It’s a block! Those are little trees, and I’m super impressed with your stripes. (At first I thought this was a whole quilt.) I think this block and the lantern are my favorites of all, but everything is so fun. Love your color scheme, btw.
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Adorable! And how clever of you to make your own stripe!
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Your candy cane trees are so cute! Your quilt will be beautiful! Loving that gray background!
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Great idea to make your own candy cane striped fabric. Such a nice touch.
Somehow, for unknown reasons, my Meyer Lemon tree up and died this year. WIthin a short period of maybe two weeks – I was so surprised and saddened. I haven’t a clue what happened to it either!
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Those trees are so cute, and the snowflake background fabric adds so much to the blocs! We actually have a modern iron tree and put colorful glass icicle ornaments on it. I’ve never liked being like everyone else!
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What cute looking trees!
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i LOVE your striped trees!!! they are so amazing. I am loving how your quilt is coming along! Can you believe we are almost finished?!
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