hot chocolate top finished!

Nine cups of hot chocolate are ready to serve! Anybody want to join me for a cup?

It feels great to finish this up today. It's like Christmas in February!  

I have slightly altered Kate Spain's pattern. I chose to put pieced steam on all blocks instead of embroidering some of them. 

I had lots of fun making this, and spent most of my time considering fabric placement within each mug. The pattern calls for just a layer cake of Kate Spain's In From The Cold, but I used a fat eighth bundle so that I'd have a larger assortment of fabric to pull from and to allow for fussy cutting. You don't want to know how many times I cut the red cookies and aqua turtle doves above!

It looks like I barely used that bundle! My leftovers might just make another nifty Christmas quilt next year.  The finished top measures 50" x 62", and you can find the free pattern here.

And now I can return to sewing with spring-y fabrics! I'll be back in just a few days with something new!

See what everybody else has finished this week at Crazy Mom Quilts.

quilted hot chocolate

Brrrrr! It's coooold outside! With all of today's snow and super-cold temperature here in NYC, it made me think about a nice cup of hot chocolate. A cup of hot chocolate quilt, that is!

I started this quilt just a few weeks ago during the holiday break. And since it is snowing, I thought that now would be the perfect time to finish it up. Plus, it's holiday fabric - and I really want to move on to springy sewing. 

To make a cup of hot chocolate, first start with a generous helping of chocolate. Oops, I mean a generous helping of fabric! I've used a fat eighth bundle of In From The Cold by Kate Spain.

Next, start sewing! I used this great free pattern on the Moda website. Kate calls the pattern "Hot Cocoa" but I've always referred to the drink as hot chocolate. So I've renamed my quilt. But wow, this pattern is a LOT of pages, so fill up your printer with paper! There are just 9 blocks plus sashing. I've made a few alterations to Kate's pattern just to make it a bit more unique and, well, Grey Dogwood-y. Here are a few of my favorite blocks so far. 

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back soon with the finished top. But now I need to go play in the snow. And make hot chocolate. The real kind. With marshmallows. Lots of marshmallows!