What I did for the pictured Christmas quilts is use a Moda Advent box that I had left over from last year for each quilt. The box contains a dozen strips that are 4 1/2 inches wide by width of fabric. Using a Moda Dessert roll would yield a similar result. Sew 11 of the strips together. Square up the resulting large block and then chop off about six to seven inches from the top. Note, this is just a fun project with no math but do consider that the strip across the top that comes next will sew to 4 inches wide. You now have two rectangles from the original large block. Take one more width of fabric strip and sew to the bottom of the smallest rectangle and then sew the strip to the top of the large rectangle for the resulting pieced block. The quilt will now measure approximately 44 by 48. I like lap quilts to be a little longer than they are wide so I added a 4 1/2 inch wide strip of coordinating fabric to the top and to the bottom of the quilt to give it some length. Since this is a Christmas themed quilt, I appliqued a few AccuQuilt cut trees along the bottom. For the quilt backing, I pieced a couple of coordinating fabric strips together for the long narrow piece of fabric. I then split the width of one long piece of backing fabric about 10 inches from the selvage edge and sewed the narrow strip to the two backing fabric pieces. I added another AccuQuilt applique tree to the narrow strip near the bottom. Just adding that extra strip of fabric to the fabric backing makes the quilt backing the perfect size for quilting and adds a bit of character to the quilt back.
For the second quilt, I sorted through the strips and grouped strips together in sets of three to make four strip sets for my rail fence blocks. After sewing the set of three strips together, I cut off one selvage end then sub-cut the strips into three 12 1/2 inch strips. I retained the leftover 6 or so inches for the quilt back. Play with the 12 blocks that you created from your four strip sets to make a pleasing layout. Sew the blocks three wide by four long. Add a border to all four sides. I think my border strips were 4 1/2 inches wide but you can make them as wide as you like. For the quilt back, I created one long narrow strip by sewing together the four pieces I cut off the strip sets to make one long narrow piece for the quilt back inset. I did have to add a few coordinating fabric pieces so the inset would be long enough. I then split the quilt back as in the first quilt and added the long strip to the quilt back.
The last quilt I made was for my dad. I love the double sliced layer cake pattern so I used a civil war reproduction layer cake and added a paisley print for the quilt outside border and a little red stripe print for a faux piping inner border. I love just that little bit of color break a faux piping border provides for a busy quilt center. Since I think paisley prints are manly, I used a paisley print for the borders and the backing. I like to use mitered corners for my outside border which worked perfect for this quilt since I also used the paisley print for the quilt backing. Since I used the length of fabric for the border, I had plenty of fabric to piece the backing with one width of fabric and the remaining border fabric. Binding for the quilt was with the red stripe print used in the faux piping. I thought the finished quilt looked nice with my dad's paisley couch.
