Into the Woods

I can't believe that I'm on the Moda Bake Shop today! One of the driving influences that convinced me I could quilt was reading their tutorials. This quilt was originally intended to be part of the Christmas in July series, but due to some internet gremlins eating e-mails it became one of the Quilts with Stories. I've always thought of this as a winter quilt rather than Christmas, so I'm rather pleased with the changed theme. For directions on how to make this quilt top please hop over to the bakeshop. (If you're here from Moda's website WELCOME!!!)

One of my favorite drinks is hot cocoa with marshmallows. When I saw this fabric I was bouncing for joy the rest of the day. There are a lot of aspects of this quilt that fight to be my favorite part, but the steaming mugs of hot cocoa and marshmallows covering the back of this quilt just might win that fight. I had about 6" left from each of my jellyroll strips, plus the strips that used my tree fabrics. I cut my backing fabric the length of my top (plus a little extra to allow for quilting) and then cut the remaining section in half lengthwise to keep my cocoa cups all facing upright. 

This picture shows you a close up of the cocoa mugs and my label. I had a left over block from the front that I cut on point to 6.5." I then used one of the jellyroll strip of my tree fabric to sash the block and hand appliqued onto the quilt. This block works perfectly for a quilt label.

I know that traditionally quilters choose small prints for the binding. This collection has several small prints that would work nicely, but I love how a large busy print looks as a binding. Rather than finding one color that works with everything in the quilt, I find a print with most of the colors of the quilt in it. Because the binding shows such a small section of the print it gets broken up and provides a really fun, unexpected twist.