aurora borealis

Melissa decided on this panel at eQuilter.com for (part of) the backing for Santa's Tree

and after it arrived i thought

 he needs to be the FRONT of a quilt... 

so i saved my pennies and tried to order it

for me!!!

but it was out of stock

 damnit...

i kept checking back 

 often... 

so often that the algorithm demons had a field day with my searches

when it was FINALLY restocked, no time was wasted getting it ordered

there was no fabric in the stash that worked with it

and there are no longer any quilt stores nearby

 trying to match those colors off a computer screen wasn't gonna happen

so it sat on top of the Great Pile of Stuff

 wait wait wait!!! lookie here!!! lookie lookie!!!

a link to this FREE pattern with a list of coordinating fabrics arrived in my email!!! 

no guessing!!! thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

so after saving my pennies 

again?!?

the suggested fabrics were ordered and sat on top of the Great Pile of Stuff cuz i was working on the gazillion flying geese for Vintage Tin 

 i can start on Northern Lights Santa as soon as Vintage Tin/Roadkill Road is ready for the To Be Quilted pile

that happened February 6 

YAY!!!

a gazillion half square triangles were sewn and trimmed 

the strips were cut and sewn to the hsts 

the inner border fabric wasn't pressed and cut yet, but i couldn't wait to see how he was gonna look

so, so close

that panel and those coordinating fabrics look awesome together and in just a few hours they could be a flimsy 

trim the center, press and cut the inner border and sew it on, meet those gazillion points, and add the outer border 

should be a happy moment, right?!?

i dunno... 

anywho, we had to stop tripping around it on the living room floor, so the strips were gathered and labeled

the inner border fabric was pressed and cut

i was about to trim the center when i thought 

i really,  really like this Santa and i don't want to be done working with him ... maybe those vines could be highlighted with some embroidery? lemme give it a try...

ooo!!! that's kinda cool!!!

ooo!!! i really, really like where this is going!!!

  the variegated flosses are gonna be DMC 4020, DMC 4025 and DMC 4030

yeah, nothing like making more work for myself

 amiright?!?