Christmas Celebration Ornament Row

An “Ornament Row” is the sixth row in my Christmas Celebration quilt from the Shabby Fabrics' Christmas Celebration Row Quilt series, pattern by Coach House Designs. There are five blocks to make in this sixth installment, each with three ornaments. The fabrics are from the Emmitt and Ivy Sweetwater line for Moda. The balls are made from five fabrics as shown with a tape measure for scale on the first photo. The strings for hanging the ornaments are either red, green, or blue as shown on the left side of the second photo. The ornament tops are striped fabric, shown on right of second photo.

I prefer to work with assigned piece letters rather than a piece description. To me it is easier to say use "A" rather than use a "2" x 3 ½ " piece of Fabric 1". I write the letter in on the pattern instructions and also add letters to any figures. Then I use my Alphabitties to label the pieces as I cut them out and stack them.

I chain pieced the white corners on all fifteen balls first, all the H/D subcomponents. I did these fifteen units assembly line style. Even when trimming the corners, I lined five up at a time and trimmed the corners with one fell swoop of the rotary cutter. 

Here are five balls in the representative colors, with all four corners of each trimmed and flipped. I considered not trimming them, since the triangle being removed is so small, but then I was concerned that untrimmed dark print might show through the white. Being a small triangle to snip off had another advantage. I felt no obligation whatsoever to make these into pinwheels as I often do with leftovers from the stitch and flip method.

Next I chain-pieced the side additions to all fifteen ornament tops (first and second photo), followed by the side additions to each ornament string (third photo).

Now the challenge was to create the correct combination of ball, top, and string for each ornament. To keep the fabric locations clear, I write each fabric number in the block diagram for each of the five ornament-trio block according to the chart of fabric locations chart in the instructions. Of course it helps to have the color designations handy to correspond to those numbers.

Here are the three ornaments A, B, C from Block 1 individually, and then joined as a trio. At this point I began to layout each three-ball block one at a time. Chain-piecing at this stage was limited, since I had to move carefully to match balls with tops with strings. 

As I made the other four blocks I added them to the right of the growing row. I pressed that center horizontal seam alternately up or down to reduce the bulk at the interface between blocks. 

Here is the row of five ornament blocks up on my design wall, added to the previous rows from this project. Oddly, I felt a bit of sadness when I completed the final block; I really enjoyed working on this quilt — the colors, the symbols, the mini-prints. I excitedly anticipate the 7th installment of borders and sashing. 

This final photo shows the tools of my trade that streamline the assembly and helped me be organized, all gathered on one of my melamine trays from the Fat Quarter Shop. At the top is a Clover thread cutting pendant, but I insert it upside down in an empty spool and use it to slice all the threads from chain piecing. To the left are my Wonder Clips and below are my pink Alphabitties.