Christmas Coins

I blame Jocelyn who writes as Canadian Needle Nana for this, check out her version of Christmas Coins here.  Such a great idea, I thought, so why not make something similar for myself.  All the Christmas coins were small scraps and strips hanging around, some longer than others, wider strips, and narrow ones too, so nothing Christmassy was cut from stash at this stage.  I’ve never been what you would call a scrappy quilter, so with mixing up all sorts of colours and designs, and different widths too, this project was a real adventure for me.  Originally this started as a leader and ender project, just sewing strips together while I was working on something else.

Lots of various strips

With all the pieces stitched, and trimmed to a uniform size, I then worked out how to assemble it, deciding on four rows of coins separated by strips of a green and white festive print.  I’ve no idea where this print came from, not something I purchased, so I must have picked it up somewhere as a give-away.  I finished it with a Christmassy border.  This little project was always going to be a Christmas tablecloth, I decided, so it is quilted with just two layers.  Here it is on the caravan table to see how it fits, not too bad, really.

Christmas tablecloth in the caravan

And talking of caravans, we are not sure when we will finally get away for our next trip.  With being in the Covid 19 Lockdown, non essential travel is not permitted, which means holidays of course.  Here in New Zealand, at this stage, we are only to travel locally for food or medical supplies.

Here’s an outdoor shot, to show it a bit better.  I used up most of my Christmassy scraps, but there are lots of other strips hanging about.   Maybe I’ll make something similar for a donation quilt one day.

Outdoors photo shoot

How about a “Blast from the Past”?  I remember using that Christmas print on an apron some years ago, so I’ve had that fabric for a long time.  I rummaged around looking for the apron, and also looking back through the blog to get the date.  This was made for the  Christmas Apron Challenge for my club, Pinestream Quilters of Upper Hutt at the time,  way back in November 2009. The challenge was to make a Christmas themed apron, of our own design. I am definitely a wearer of aprons, so this challenge certainly took my fancy. I used a commercial apron pattern (tissue paper) that I knew I had from years gone by, (Butterick 4066). I decided to stitch the selvage from the Christmas fabric across the apron bib. The print was used for the straps, pockets and the apron hem, teamed with cream homespun. It didn’t turn out too bad, if I do say so myself.  Although I didn't win a prize for my apron that night, I was thrilled when it was shown on the Selvedge blog, read about it here.   https://romanyquilting.blogspot.com/2009/12/im-so-excited.html

Robin took a photo of me wearing the apron, and his comment was “You look like you are in the Sound of Music”.  Goodness me, I think I do – such a shame I’m not much of a singer!

I’ve been wondering why the design Chinese Coins is so named?  Did they really stack lots of colourful coins one on top of each other in a big pile?  Someone is sure to know.