The clock is a tickin’, the year is nearly over, it’s nearly Christmas day!  KUH-RAY-ZEE!  Where has this year gone??  (Don’t ask me.  I’ve spent most of it hussling kids and walking around in a zombie-like, new-baby state.)  So much has happened, but in some ways, so little has happened!  On the one hand we have a new (and final! OH SO FINAL!) member in our family – sweet, and precious, and so very fat, baby Leo; and on the other hand I have certainly felt the constraint of having a fourth child.  I am normally a ‘get out there’ kinda girl, but the thought of hitting the shops or parks or groceries or anything with four kids in tow has not been very appealing.  There is no such thing as a short outing anymore – not when it takes you 10 minutes to get everyone IN the car and then another 10 minutes to get everyone OUT of the car, and then that again for the return trip!  So we have been significantly house bound by choice since May.  The older kids have certainly felt the impact, even though they may not be able to verbalise it.  But, we have all survived quite a topsy-turvy year and I feel like I’m just starting to come out of that newborn baby fog.

And there’s nothing like a fabric delivery to get that fog to start lifting!  I have no doubt you have already seen the latest Tilda collection to hit the stores – ‘Cottage’.

Doesn’t that photo just make you want to pack up and move to the North Pole?  Those red lips!  Her amazing red hair!  The beret!  The wrist warmers!

I really admire the photo stylists for Tilda.  They sure know how to put on the charm.  If they ever wanted to work with a lowly stay-at-home-mum creative, you know, just for fun, I’d be happy to help them out.  Just putting that out there…  )And if I got to meet Tone, well that would just be the icing on the Christmas fruitcake!)

My favourite print from the collection is definitely Minerva… I’m a bit partial to a floral on a solid background, particularly the neutral…

This Tilda collection just screams Winter and hot chocolate and cosying up by the fireside.  And Christmas!  Northern-hemisphere style, of course; which, by the way, I have never actually experienced – it’s usually mid to high thirties on Christmas day in Queensland and we’re more likely to be sucking back Margaritas, shelling prawns and bomb-diving into the nearest pool.  Which is not without its charm!

I was particularly inspired by the Christmassy feel of this collection and the wintery Tilda imagery, so thought I’d design something along those lines, and I’m very happy to add another free pattern to the Wife-made collection – a Christmas Wreath Mini Quilt!  (And I guess this is kind of a soft release of my new pattern design and layout!  So yay for that too!)

Get the free Christmas Wreath Mini Quilt Pattern here!

The Christmas Wreath Mini Quilt is quite a fast sew – for the average sewer.  If you don’t have four kids.  And get a solid 8 hours every night.  It took me about a week from the moment I started to completely finished, but that includes getting up and down for food and drink requests (among other things) about 8 million times.  And to be honest, my sewing time is literally just stolen moments at the moment.  Because Leo did not get the fourth child memo.  Ie. He’s supposed to just lie there and be content and not say too much, or be too loud, and be happy to just be alive.  Nope.  Someone accidentally sent him another memo instead because he’s the opposite.  Demands attention constantly, wants to be held constantly, likes to yell bellow at the top of his lungs constantly.  But I digress… (also I love him to death, just to make it abundantly clear that I wouldn’t have him any other way, well, maybe just a little quieter and less clingy…).

The sections of the Christmas Wreath Mini Quilt are foundation paper pieced and then joined together to make a circle, which is then quilted (I machine-quilted to start with and then finished with some hand-quilting because I love having a bit of both in my projects), and bound.

I wanted this mini quilt to be more than just a picture of a wreath on a quilt, and adding the element of a hole in the middle of the quilt really gives it that feel!  I hand-bound the inner edge using single fold bias binding, whereas double fold bias binding was used on the outer edge (also hand-bound).

I mocked up a couple of different fabric combinations in Tilda Cottage, just in case you need further convincing that you should buy some of this collection and then make this Christmas Wreath Mini Quilt.

Get the free Christmas Wreath Mini Quilt Pattern here!

I don’t want to seem pushy, but have I inspired you?  Are you gonna buy some?  In case you need further inspiration, head over to the Tilda blog to see some more amazing creations from amazing creatives using ‘Cottage’.  My friend Sarah of Piccolo Studio made some beautiful notebooks, keychains and laptop covers!

Tilda ‘Cottage’ is available in-store now and can be purchased wholesale through 2 Green Zebras.

Disclaimer:  Fabric wholesaler 2 Green Zebras supplied the fabric for this project.  All opinions are my own.