Christmas Traditions

I am very lucky to have a life partner who completely supports my sewing in every way he can.  He had the brilliant idea a few years back to start buying me fabric to make a Christmas quilt every year as one of my gifts- a quilt that I would make for our little family each year to start our own collection.  This is a tradition I have come to very much look forward to when it is gift opening time.  He picks the fabric and I create the design and make the quilt.  It is so much fun to pull out the past quilts every year when holiday decorating and reflect on how my skills have grown in a year- this small collection is an important part of our history and has become family heirlooms for us.  This year I got 3 charm packs of Kate Spain's Flurry collection and I couldn't wait for the gift opening to be done so I could get started.  (well that isn't entirely true- I really do love opening gifts... especially from him)  But as soon as that part was done I was already sketching and planning on how I would make my quilt this year.  I had a lot of ideas but settled on doing my own version of a 9 patch quilt- I have looked and looked and can't find anything similar to it on the web- I call it my cross eyed 9 patch and I just love the design.  I love it so much in fact that I may just make my first quilt pattern with this new technique... so more on that later.  I am working on quilting it today and I will show more progress as soon as possible, but for now these are a few shots of the blocks .  Three cheers for lovely BF's with amazing taste and great tradition ideas!!