Festival of Trees: One

 

In 2009, I subscribed to a BOM project that had caught my eye. In general, I'm not crazy about Christmasy quilts, but there was something about Festival of Trees that I found irresistible. Barbara Brackman and Karla Menaugh had designed the project, and I loved what appeared to me to be an ancient-but-modern style, if you know what I mean. So I subscribed. And that's all I can tell you until now.

Today, during the purge associated with the renovation, I discovered a large bag full of wool. I had previously unearthed a box or two of wool that I promised to a guild buddy who is doing wool appliqué. That is all pressed and set aside to give her next week. This bag contained some generous pieces and it was all reds and greens and whites and browns and -- oh my goodness -- there were a whole lot of pieced blocks in there, too! Rather amazingly, there was also a picture of the finished project.

I set to pressing and putting them up on my wall and discovered that 95% of the buttonhole appliqué is actually finished. All that is missing are two small pieces, the vertical row of circles on the far right and the tiny gold star on white that seems to be floating all by itself.

There were no patterns, and there were no instructions, but I believed I could bribe my Beloved to draft what I needed. The bigger problem was that I had no idea what size to trim the individual blocks to! I considered my options and it turned out Google is, indeed, my friend. I learned that while the BOM is long retired, Barbara and Karla put the patterns -- and some additional patterns and projects -- into a book called Juniper and Mistletoe and I found a used copy for under ten dollars, postage included! I'll have it in a week or so. 

I'll never know what happened that I got so far and then stopped. But I'm delighted to have resumed!