Drinking my coffee on Saturday morning I could not help but look over and admire my Christmas tree in our family room. This is my "Woodland" tree and this year I decorated it a little bit different because I only put up less then half the normal amount of ornaments as usual - I am getting lazy. But, even with just these select ornaments (glass birds, pine cones, acorns, nuts and extra greenery) I really think it turned out nice. Admiring the tree with all the bronze, silver, copper and gold tear drop shapes, I got inspired to create a quilt. Not a Christmas quilt, but a quilt that interprets the pine cone shapes and the colors of my Woodland tree.

My husband and I where planning to go out that day Christmas shopping so I finished my coffee and headed to the sewing room to start pulling fabrics. I knew I would be needing to pick some more prints up while we were out.

I put together a card with little swatches of the prints that I thought were going to work for the look I wanted. I already knew what design I was going to use, a variation of my "Trimming the Tree" design that would be quick and easy to make.

I simply stapled fabric swatches to a piece of card stock so I could have this with me when I went to look at fabrics. Yes, my palette choice now includes some blues rather then all coppers, golds, silvers, etc. But that is OK, sometimes inspiration is just the starting point, you can interpret it anyway you want.

Here are some of the prints I brought home to work into my quilt.

I have a bunch of fabrics here to choose from and because this throw quilt is going to be a scrap quilt, I finally narrowed it down to 24 dark prints and about 12 light prints. This picture is before it is narrowed down.

So, Sunday was cutting the top out and Monday and Tuesday (today) I got it all pieced. Here is the finished top. This picture below shows the quilt a bit more purple then it really is, the border is gray to give you a reference. It is very cloudy here today, so it is hard to photograph well in the lighting I have - I will take more pictures for you when it is all quilted and finished!

This block is sort of a Kansas Dugout, but easier. I made 6" blocks and the finished size of this throw will be 72" square. I will be getting this put together with the batting and backing and doing some simple hand quilting to finish it all up. I love to have a project like quilting to do on those long winter evenings.

I hope your holidays are just as inspiring. Creative ideas can be found anywhere.