Another Christmas tree!

This weekend was my second visit to the quilting group in my village, and it was another fun day. I'm afraid I forgot to take my camera on the day, but I will remember it one day, promise.

About two days before the meeting I realised that I had been set some homework (not really but I saw it that way) which was to try out some sample squares that the rest of the group had already done in previous months. The first one was called pin wheel.

I didn't bother cutting out the squares needed, I had a lovely 'Happy Campers' charm pack and thought I'd use some of those fabrics. Unfortunately they weren't the right size for the pattern, so my finished sampler is a lot smaller than it should be. Who cares though really, it still looks good.

And the second one, I'm not sure what the pattern is called. I guess it's just made up of half square triangles. I'm amazed at how quickly it all went together.

I cut all the squares out of small off-cuts I had from a quilt that I had made before. The colours work well together, but I wish I had been fussy with my cutting and had a big bunch of roses in the centre squares. I might have a go at placing an appliqued busy square right in the centre, but not today. It's only getting folded away and put back in my folder anyway.

So the project that we created on the day, was a Christmas tree made up from 5 and a half inch equilateral triangles. You can make it up with either 6 or 10 triangles. I went for the larger (10 triangle) version.

You make the triangles up double sided, and then fold in the corners and sew (by hand) in place and then pull in the sides and sew (by hand) in place again. After that it's just a simple case of sewing the triangles together using ladder stitch along the edges of the points, stitch on the pot and bead at will.
Easy peasy, heh?

Even though it was pretty much straight forward, I was surprised at how long it actually took to make. But it was a great excuse to sit around and chat whilst sewing.

Inga, an 80 year old lady loved the idea of a 'stitch and bitch' group that she'd heard of. She said it sounded wonderful, but rightly pointed out that it would only be really good fun if you knew the same people. I think she hoped we might know some juicy gossip.

Sue, and I spent most of the session giggling like naughty school girls over who was 'teachers pet' and who was getting things wrong. It constantly changed as the day went along. The lady who runs the group is really, really lovely, but she doesn't mince her words if she doesn't like what you've done.
The best comment I heard was when we were all nearing the end of the project and looking at one ladies work she said 'you are trying to make a tree, aren't you?'