The Christmas Pineapple Quilt

I am a huge Lella Boutique fan - and - with the exception of 'Smoke and Rust' - have loved almost all of her lines (some more than others). When I saw the Christmas Morning line, I knew I wanted to do something with it - and of course ordered a fat quarter bundle immediately. Honestly, this line just hits all the spots for me: the florals, the color palette, the Christmas theme. Check, check, and check!

The past few months have been a bit hectic in my world - and to be completely honest, I haven't had much mental capacity to think. Quilting is a form of therapy for me; but it's also one that requires you to think and focus on the project at hand. The struggle is - when you need to dive into a project to escape the stress of the world, but those same stressors are making it a little difficult to focus on the important things - like organizing your fabric, measuring & cutting properly, and even just sewing the right pieces together. So, I knew I needed something that would yield a lovely block without too much prep work on my end. Introduce foundation paper piecing. :)

I settled on making 'pineapple' blocks using the Christmas Morning fabric and a coordinating Bella Solid for the background (9900-98). My thought was I could have a 'Christmas Pineapple' quilt! Cute, right?! I bought 2 pads of the 6" Pineapple Quilt Block Foundation Paper from It's Sew Emma, and 2 Jelly Rolls of a background and 2 of Christmas Morning. It may very well be more than I need, but - you know, just in case...right?!

Foundation Paper Piecing (or FPP) can be pretty intimidating when you look at some of the intricate things that are made with FPP - and to be honest, I've not dabbled with anything very advanced. But, I do love easy FPP projects because it allows me to just create without too much thought, and at the end of the project - my blocks are perfect...as long as I sewed on the line!

If you've not dabbled with FPP - there are a ton of videos on YouTube that will help introduce you to the technique. It's a simple concept - but does take a little bit to get in your groove. In short, you follow a piece of paper that has a bunch of lines and numbers on it. The lines represent where you're going to sew and the numbers are areas where you'll place your fabric - in sequential order. Almost like a paint by number kind of thing - just, in the world of quilting. :)

Once I had my paper and my fabric, I got busy creating. After making my first block, I realized each of my 6" blocks were going to use 1 full strip of background fabric (the Bella Solid 9900-98) and 1 full strip of Christmas Morning fabric. My goal is to make two types of blocks: those that have the same print fabric throughout, and a set of blocks where the center square is different than the outer pieces (just for a little added visual interest). Once my blocks are all pieced and ready to be put together, I thought I'd add that same Bella Solid in 9900-98 as sashing to piece my blocks together. Then finish it out with a lovely floral print from the Christmas Morning line for a nice border.

When I started - I thought it'd be nice to finish my quilt top (at least) by Christmas this year. In my head, I thought this was the only project I'm really working on - so why couldn't it happen?! Well, it's not even November 1 yet, and I've only got 20 blocks done - my original goal was 80! I may have been kidding myself about having this done by this year...this might be a lovely quilt that I finish for Christmas next year instead.