12 Days of Christmas Sampler Quilt, blocks 5-12

As I've said before I was a little ambitious at Christmastime.  A little over-ambitious.  With my "to-do" list getting larger I ended up abandoning my 12 Days of Christmas quilt blocks after block 8, but I'm happy to say that I picked the project up again this week and finished the last 4 blocks!  I had so much fun making these blocks that I've actually joined two more quilt-alongs.  I have all the fabric picked out and purchased for the Sew.Happy.Quilt mixed sampler quilt along hosted by Sew.Happy.Geek, but have yet to make decisions about fabric for the Solstice Stars quilt along-- I'm thinking solids.

But anyways, back to the 12 Days of Christmas Sampler! Looking at my previous blog posts though I realize that I never posted blocks 5-8, so I'll just go ahead and show you the last 8 all in one post.

For blocks 1-4 please refer back to this post.

Block 5: It's All About the Presents Block (designed by Elizabeth @ Don't Call Me Betsy)

Block 6: Modern Selvage Snowflake (designed by Riel @ The Q and the U)

 

Block 7: Christmas Tree (designed by Jennifer @ Ellison Lane Quilts)

Block 8: Paper Pieced Noel (designed by Lindsay @ Lindsay Sews)

Block 9: Hanging Ornaments (designed by Jessica @ SewCraftyJess)
 I actually ended up not doing this block.  Since I improvised a little on the Noel block and added hanging ornaments, I decided not to do this block because it would look too similar.  (Sorry Jessica! If I had known you were planning hanging ornaments I wouldn't have done it, I promise!)

Block 10: Christmas Stockings (designed by Sarah @ Fairy Face Designs)

Block 11: Wreath (designed by Heather & Megan @ Quilt Story)

Block 12: Peppermint Candy (designed by Kim @ My Go Go Life)

*Block 13: Home For Christmas (designed by me!)*

This was the block I came up with to replace block 9 that I didn't do.  I wanted something that kept with the feel of the other blocks, but I wanted to paper piece it, and it needed to be on a white background (I had already decided on block placement and knew that a white background would be best).  After designing the house and preparing all the pattern pieces (which took a few hours) I did the piecing in 20 minutes.  I absolutely love this block!

So far I haven't been able to take ANY photos where the colors end up right.  What you see above is my best effort to tweak balances to get the right colors, but they're still far from right.  I'm hoping once it's all together I'll be able to get some beautiful photos of it.