Jolly Tree Farm Completion

The first tree I quilted was from Week Three. I too was Feelin' Pine & Dandy because I'd been inspired with a quilting pattern. I did curves on all the triangles but intentionally did not stitch curves around the seam in the pieced triangle pair I wanted to look like a diamond (midway down blog post). In retrospect perhaps I could have lined up the polka dots better but that did not occur to me at the time of cutting.

Next up I quilted the week one tree Spruced Up. I managed to do all three trees, nine total boughs, without having to break thread. Here are those three trees and a closeup of the bottom center one over a trunk.

Next I quilted the week four tree Tree-mendous Holiday. It was already pretty simple with all those rectangles and I decide to keep the quilting simple, too, to show off all those luscious prints. All of the curves in these trees are freehanded so they are not identical.

While I was deciding how to quilt the week two tree I did a star. I quilted a star ¼" inside its perimeter and ¼" outside its perimeter, using a ruler to get straight lines. I used a very pale gray thread rather than white since I thought the houndstooth had equal parts white and gray.

For the week two Rejoice Fir-ever tree, my delay due to indecision was resolved when I overlaid a sheet protector and doodled triangles. Three triangles in the lowest bough, two triangles in the middle bough, and two smaller triangles with a diamond in the top tier seemed to work. This doodling auditioning is my response to the dreaded phrase "quilt as desired". Now I, too, could "Rejoice Fir-ever" once a plan had been decided and executed.

I then proceeded to quilt the remaining four pieced stars. After that I took a break to write this blog post since the conundrum of what to quilt in the background loomed. Whatever it was, it had to weave in and among those trees and stars. Waves using a ruler was not viable with so many interruptions in the flow. In the open areas it occurred to me that I did not need to do a continuous stitching filler. Some individual stitched stars like the pieced ones would fill in the area nicely. I could also do them in different sizes. 

I made myself a few templates and marked only the eight corner points of each star. Connecting these dots in the correct order would form a star. Normally I do not like marking my quilt tops. I am timid that if I do not cover the marks completely they may show if they fail to come out.  Tiny grey dots covered by pale gray thread disappeared. Here are some of my templates and the order for connecting the dots. After is a photo of the corner dots having been transferred to the quilt top. Those dots really are teeny tiny. I scattered stars of different sizes to fill in blank areas.

In the upper left,  among the week one Spruced Up trees, I put wedges to accentuate the triangular shapes. Stars would have looked too uniformly lined up here since they were randomly placed elsewhere.

I stitched the outer border with a simple zig zag, creating triangles that echoed those within the trees.

Here is the link for the free pattern series. I will caution that the fabric requirements are overly generous. The finished size is 31½" x 36½" which calculates out to an area of 1250 square inches. Looking at the background and border fabric requirements only (not backing nor binding)

1.5 yards background = 1.5 yd x 44inchesWOF x 36 inches/yd  = 2376 square inches

Layer cake  = 42 squares x 10 inches x 10inches = 4200 square inches

Sum of yardage + layer cake = 6576 square inches 

Yes, I realize seams take up some yardage, but not five times as 1250 sq in versus 6576 sq in. I had nine untouched squares left over from the layer cake.  There were also large scraps from partially used squares. Basically there is a pile of corals, a pile of greens and a pile of light/mixed. It is very fortunate that I love the Pointsettias and Pears fabric line so much.

Truly this quilt can be made from a stash of Christmas fabrics and does not need a layer cake. When you use a layer cake there certainly is less work and fewer time-consuming decision making than is involved when pulling together from a variety of fabric lines. With a layer cake, however, be prepared to be adding to your scrap pile/box/bin/bag/nest ... a lot!

I hand stitched my two labels diagonally in the lower corners of the back, and bound the quilt in green. For the backing I picked the coral background fabric from the Moda Pointsettias and Pears line by Sherri and Chelsi.

Here is the finished quilt. It measures 31½" x 36½".  Links to previous posts for this quilt follow the photo of the completed quilt.

The list of my five blog posts for this wall hanging follows.

Jolly Tree Farm Week One: Spruced Up (8/31/26) 11½” x 18 ½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Two: Rejoice Fir-ever (9/14/26) 8½” x 11½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Three: Feelin' Pine and Dandy (9/17/26) 12½"x 20½" 

Jolly Tree Farm Week Four: Tree-mendous Holiday (9/21/26) 14½"x 20½"

Jolly Tree Farm Completion: Assembly & Quilting 9/27/26 (this post) 31½"x 36½"

Jolly Tree Farm 4: Tree-Mendous Holiday

 Tree-mendous Holiday is the week four block for 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 am still in love with this color palette. Once again I strove to make all the houndstooth in the background face the same way as I have done in previous weeks. One sawtooth star this week had houndstooth print also, so I had to pay attention when assembling it.

Sawtooth Stars
I will admit, I was getting a bit bored with sawtooth stars by this fourth week. The color palette still enchanted me but I made the two stars, two at a time so I could chain piece wherever possible. I was careful to cut two D rectangles vertical and two D rectangles horizontal for each star in the background houndstooth. Cutting the coral houndstooth was not as much an issue since all the those pieces were square. I just had to pay attention during assembly.

In the upper star section, the top two rows out of five rows total, included the tip of the tree. In the background houndstooth rectangles, C was cut vertical, A was cut horizontal, and B was square so its orientation for cutting was irrelevant.

Tree Section

Three more rows completed the lower section of the tree and its trunk. It was a nice relief to just do straight stitching instead of all those 45° angles with associated flipping and trimming. I lined up all those rectangles in order and then chain pieced as much as I could into two rows. I then added a trunk row at the bottom.

Here is the completed week four. It was by far the easiest of the weeks. It measures 14½"x 20½".

Assembly

It wasn't until Week Five that assembly instructions were given but I decided to include the sashing and borders in this post.  I very carefully figured out how to orient the borders so that the houndstooth continued to face a consistent way... and I did it wrong for the two longest pieces, borders D and E. Fortunately I could salvage E horizontals from the wrongly cut longer D verticals. I had to piece the D verticals because I did not have enough fabric length in the correct orientation.

 

Assembled, this top measures 31½" x 36½". I am on a roll... I even prepped my binding and made my labels. Let's hope I do not come to a screeching halt as I often do when it comes to the sandwiching.  The size is small enough that I suspect I will not procrastinate too much.

The list of my four blog posts for this wall hanging follows.

Jolly Tree Farm Week One: Spruced Up (8/31/26) 11½” x 18 ½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Two: Rejoice Fir-ever (9/14/26) 8½” x 11½”

Jolly Tree Farm Week Three: Feelin' Pine and Dandy (9/17/26) 12½"x 20½"

Jolly Tree Farm Week Four: Tree-mendous Holiday (this post) 14½"x 20½"

Jolly Tree Farm Week Five: Assembly (this post) 31½"x 36½" 

One more post for this quilt remains for me to publish — the quilting and binding.