Jolly Tree Farm 2: Rejoice Fir-Ever

This is the block for Week Two of the Jolly Tree Farm Mystery quilt offered by the Fat Quarter Shop. It is made from the Poinsettia and Pear line by Sherri and Chelsi. I set myself a personal challenge to have the houndstooth background all face the same way. The instructions do not go to that level of detail so I carefully figured out myself how to orient the pieces for cutting.

I start out as I always do, cutting out my pieces and labeling them with my Alphabitties and Clover Wonder Clips on my melamine tray.

The first section to sew up is the sawtooth star. The lower and upper houndstooth rectangles were cut horizontally while the side houndstooth rectangles needed to be cut vertically. When I positioning the corners on the houndstooth rectangles I double checked before flipping to be sure the houndstooth print was not "upside down". When assembling the star from the flying geese components, I checked and double checked the orientation on them as well at this step. My paying extra attention paid off. All houndstooth print pieces faced the same way.

On the tree section, the rectangular background pieces needed careful thought before cutting to determine if the rectangles need to be horizontal or vertical in order to orient the houndstooth consistently. Rectangles on either side of the tree boughs needed to be cut vertical. Rectangles on either side of the tree stump needed to be cut horizontal. It was not rocket science — just took a bit of time to pause and think.

The tree bough section yielded me six bonus HSTs. I'd make up four into a pinwheel and save the other two to perhaps use with the scraps from another week. Note the houndstooth print spins within the pinwheel.

Here is my completed Fir-Ever block and bonus pinwheels. Personal note of pride: the houndstooth fabric is all oriented the same way. I hope I can keep this up for week three and week four.

Week Two's unfinished size is 8½” x 11½”. It is not very big, but the cuteness is densely packed in. Week One's unfinished size had been 11½” x 18 ½”, the same height but wider. Here is a running list of blog posts thus far for this wall hanging.

Jolly Tree Farm Week One: Spruced Up  8/31/26

Jolly Tree Farm Week Two: Rejoice Fir-ever (this post 9/14/26)

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.