Jolly Tree Farm 1: Spruced Up

The Fat Quarter shop was offering a Mystery Christmas quilt over a four week period. The Week One introduction, titled Spruced Up, caught my eye as being especially cheery and I loved the fabric selection. It was shown in the Poinsettia and Pear line by Sherri and Chelsi. To me it was red and green Christmas with a playful tweak of corals and lime substitution. The pattern was a four issue free download release weekly. I religiously downloaded the patterns and came to the realization I really did want to make this 31.5" x 36.5" wallhanging. It was no longer a mystery since I peeked ahead before starting. I refrained from buying the kit —rare restraint on my part. I did however, buy a layer cake of the prints I so loved, along with some white houndstooth fabric for the background.

The trees initially start out as nine flying geese blocks. From those cut off corners I made four pinwheels with two HSTs leftover.

These nine flying geese were further transformed into triangular boughs of trees with the addition of white background on the corners. These corners that I cut off were more complex now and they had a handedness. I also was exceedingly careful to have all the houndstooth face the same way. I know that this was an unnecessary challenge that I placed on myself, but so be it. 

I had nine HSTs with red on the right and nine HSTs with red on the left, all with green on the bottom. I joined them into two pinwheels with green centers and two pinwheels with red centers.

There were two simple orphan HSTs  and two complex HSTs that did not make it into pinwheels. Maybe they will go with other HSTs from later blocks. 

Despite my distraction with the "leftovers", I did complete the first of of four sections. Spruced Up measures 11½" x 18½".  See? The houndstooth all faces the same way. The block as well as the extras are shown in the second photo.  Also notice there is about the same amount of fabric in those cut-offs as in the finished block.

October Flying Geese and Pumpkins Completed

This post continues my work, many my FMQ, on the October banner from the Pieceful Patchwork Banner for October from Shabby Fabrics that I assembled in my previous post. "Quilt as Desired." That phrase used to strike fear in me but not so much now. I break down these wall hangings into sections and try something different in each area. I also mix up ruler work with free-hand, not just for variety in the quilt, but also for my own sanity adn skilll building. 

Flying Geese
For the orange and black flying geese bodies I used Angela Walters' shape by shape inspiration and her ruler Slim to denote direction. I wanted the pointed angularity to give a sense of motion and to echo the V-shape in the sky of migrating geese. I would address the cream speckled sky later. I used this same ruler in the pumpkins, leaves, and stems. It is my very favorite because of the convenient hand-held size, the light and dark lines, and the 45° guidance indicators.

Pumpkins Proper
For the pumpkins I wanted to call attention to each central sawtooth star so I echoed around its outer edges. I planned to go ½" apart but I goofed and so was committed throughout to ¼" spacing. That was a lot of dense quilting that I felt obligated to repeat in the second pumpkin. I chose not to go so dense in the pumpkin center. I've been told that one of the rules of quilting is that there be equal density throughout, but I flaunted that guidance.

Leaf and Stem

The grid fabric of the green leaf seemed to call out for a grid quilting. I explored that option at first, but then decided I preferred a veined approach for the leaves. For the adjacent stem, vertical lines could have been appropriate like the stem on a real pumpkin. Instead, I chose to echo the diamond from the pumpkin center below. I auditioned my options on a clear page protector with a dry erase marker, then overlaid them on the top itself for the final decision.

Thin and Wide Borders
Using an orange thread in the thin inner border, I stitched a zig zag using the concave right angle of the Handi VersaTool. 

For the wide outer border, I stayed with the orange thread and used the HQ Wave E template, the steeper wave side. The curvature seemed to work out well with the scale of the haunted mansions in the border print.

Background and Sashing

For the background and sashing I switched to a cream colored upper thread but left the orange in the bobbin. I reasoned that even if my tension did stray, tiny bobs of orange peeking up in the speckled fabric would be OK. Orange top stitching would have been a distraction. By the time I got to the background and sashing I wanted to give my ruler concentration a rest. I did my standard arcs free-hand in the background triangles of the flying geese blocks. The arcs are hard to see but they do give texture and do not distract from the geese. I did loops in the striped sashing using the wide black lines to guide my spacing. 

For around the pumpkins, meander at first came to mind, but that is still not my strength. The theme of loopy tendrils at the top of pumpkins gave me the inspiration for doing a meandering loop. The meandering loop is in the same thread as the background so the imperfections are not obvious. Non-smooth glitches are still there but they are passable while I continue to practice my meandering.

The non-smooth glitches show up more clearly on the backing as well as my slightly imbalanced thread tension. Uneven tension bias was intentional on my part. I'd rather cream bobbles on the back rather than orange bobbles on the front. The next two photos are front and back close-ups of the same area of pumpkin. The stem can serve as a source of orientation. I need more practice to get smoother.

Labels

My grosgrain labels were black thread on orange grosgrain ribbon read DIC_OCT_2026 and FLYING_GEESE_AND_PUMPKINS. As is my tradition for these banners, the OCT stands for the theme month and not my month of completion. Here are the labels before and after attachment to the quilt corners.

 

Completed Banner
The completed banner measures 31" x 31" and will be hung outside my sewing room doorway come October 1st. For completeness I have also shown the back with the hanging sleeve.

Here are my completions thus far for this series from Shabby Fabrics.

• JAN    Snowmen and Snowflakes (2/10/26)
• MAR  Shamrocks and Irish Chains (4/6/26)
• APR   Bunnies and Carrots (3/6/26)
• MAY   Roses and Pansies (9/11/25)
• JUN    Strawberries (9/6/25)
• JUL    Flags and Pinwheels (6/24/26)
• AUG    Bees and Sunflowers (9/21/25)
• SEP      Log Cabins and Schoolhouses  (8/5/26)
• OCT    Flying Geese and Pumpkins (this post 8/26/26)

Three more to go. I am really looking forward to the November banner, which has acorns!