Decorating Christmas Trees – With Free Motion Quilting

I wish I was one of those organized quilters who stitch their Christmas projects in July-but that’s just not me.  My quilting is usually seasonal (see here).  Now that we are decorating the house for Christmas, I’m inspired to stitch a few quilted motifs.  As usual, I start with a few doodles: (You can read more about Doodle Notebooks here)

Then I head to my sewing room.  The nice thing about decorating Christmas trees is that the essence is so simple:  a triangle…with a trunk…and maybe a star on top.

If you start with that shape, it almost doesn’t matter what you stitch…

It will be recognizable as a Christmas tree…

I liked this tree a lot and it was easy, easy to stitch.

Lightly draw a triangle.  Start stitching in the middle and move up to the pointed top (add the star now if you would like one).  Then stitch down and to the right.

Then, just sweep left and right to form the bows of the tree-offsetting the upward “swoop”.

In less than a minute you will have a gorgeous tree…

Then just stitch a few more trees with any pattern that comes to mind….

I like this fancy tree:

A bit plain, perhaps…

I love this decorated tree–wish the tree in our living room was so quickly decorated!

Now it’s your turn–give it a little glitz!

Next week–I have an easy project for our quilted forest!

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