These holiday wall hangings were one of my first attempts to include quilting in the block. We lost my mom at the end of 2020 (not to Covid) and it was very hard as my parents had been married for nearly 70 years. My 85-year-old dad does a lot of my embroidery samples and although he has a Baby Lock Solaris, he decided he wanted a 10-needle. He ended up with a pre-loved Baby Lock Enterprise and loves it. I had been toying with these in-the-hoop squares and now dad had two embroidery machines to help me make samples.
Fall Leaves was the first wall hanging and originally, I only made the larger squares – 6 ½” x 6 ½”. I had made a version of this wall hanging for my own house a few years before and had quilted it on my long arm. I liked the leaf motif I had used for the quilting, so I decided to digitize it and make it part of the in-the-hoop blocks. Dad made two more – one for him and one for my sister. I then decided to add the smaller version of the squares so they would fit in hoops that are only 6 ½” wide. Dad stitched these out and they looked great.
Stars and Stripes was the second in-the-hoop wall hanging. This wall hanging can be used several times a year for all the American holidays. There are two layouts in this pattern.
Then, at the end of 2021 my dad decided to move to a wonderful retirement community nearby my sister and me. His house was too big and was too full of memories. Once settled, we could see that other residents hang paintings and wreaths and all sorts of things outside their apartments as they each have quite a bit of wall space. Dad and I talked, and he said he wanted to hang some of his smaller quilts. We decided that he would make his door-front holiday themed and thus began the designing more holiday themed projects.
Christmas was too busy so that wall-hanging will have to wait a bit. The next wall hanging was LOVE. As the word LOVE is four letters, I thought it would be fun to add that word to the bottom of that wall hanging. It uses four of the letters from my Lil’Elemenopea alphabet. Dad has had that wall hanging up since the beginning of January.
As dad is getting quite a bit of foot-traffic by his door front, he decided he needed to be ready for St Patrick’s Day in March. That wall hanging went together quickly. I love the colors – it is so bright and cheerful. Again, the letters come from my Lil’Elemenopea alphabet.
I have two more less specific holiday wall hangings made but have not yet written the patterns. I think that Easter is the next one we have to design!
