We hope you have a happy food-eating, game-playing, friend-visiting, family-hugging holiday from Cathy and Ellen

Here is the finally finished ladder quilt that has been 90% complete for the past 8 months – barely squeaking by the finished-in-2011 deadline.  This quilt started in the sweltering summer, and I can remember pinning it in shorts with all the windows and doors open to bring in as much breeze as possible.  Now we can actually use it!

You might notice that the stripes are not straight.  The blocks were originally designed for a quilt that would look more like this, but when it was all spread out on the floor, the colors were not contrasting enough to pull it off – hence the simplified design.  Thanks to my East Bay Modern Quilt Guild friends for teaching me how to feature this little selvage swatch detail – it’s my favorite part:

Wishing you all a warm holiday season and lots of finished projects!

It’s feeling a lot like Christmas everywhere you look! Here in the studio, we look forward to the moment when we can put our little Pantone pine out on the table. Every year we decorate the studio tree with swatches that were left out in the sunny Texas studio too long, thus they were no longer matchable. Instead of throwing them away, we saved them for our little tree … I guess you could call it the Tree of Misfit Swatches. (I just had to link to a clip from our beloved Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It’s just not Christmas without at least one viewing.) Which makes me think … Hm? I wonder what color that nose really would be? Perhaps Pantone 200C or Pantone Red 032C?

Hope you are enjoying your Christmas decorating as much as we are! We would love to hear about your unusual Christmas tree adornments or holiday decorations. And, we hope that your holiday season is as colorful and bright as Pantone 17-1463, (recently announced 2012 Color of the Year) !