I Must Be Crazy . . .

Today's blog post title sounds like the beginning of one of those cheezy, low budget, used car ads, doesn't it? I picture a fat guy with a weird suit and an oversized rhinestone cowboy hat yelling, "I must be CRAZY to be practically GIVING cars AWAY at these low, low prices!" Okay, but it's not. It's a serious cry for help. Well, maybe it's not all THAT serious. But here's the thing.

I've spent a lot of time and effort amassing a nearly complete collection of various Christmas prints, but I've not spent nearly the time or effort trying to decide what I want to MAKE with them. It's a collection/acquisition thing, I suppose. But now that I have them, what to do?

First, there's that lovely Holiday Happy line of Monica's. Then there's the Kate Spain 12 Days of Christmas. And Quilt Soup's Hip Holidays. And . . . and . . . and . . . Yep, I'm even feeling a little bit embarrassed about how much Christmas fabric I have.

I was kind of playing with the idea of looking for a Miss Rosie pattern or two, because we all know how wonderfully scrappy they are, right? But then I came across THIS. Yes, it's another quilt along; this one uses charm squares--or at least you CAN use charm squares. Of course, you can use scraps, fat quarters, layer cakes, or just about anything else that you can find in your stash or at your local quilt shop.

There's nowhere to sign up and no commitment to make except to yourself. Steps will be posted each Sunday, and last Sunday's post sets out all of the material needed to make the quilt. And no, of course YOU don't need to use Christmas fabric, but I think I do. Or I should, anyway. 'Cause I have some and I'm feeling just a tad guilty about it.

Basically you'll need a light "background" fabric and a bunch of medium to dark toned fabrics for the rest--contrast is the key here. Here are some of the setting options:

Since this is basically one block used over and over, I'm not sure how many "steps" there will be, but I suspect we'll make half square triangles in one step and four-patch blocks in another. Then we'll repeat the steps over and over, and faster and faster, until we're either dancing a tango or we have all the blocks we need to make a pretty big quilt.

So join me, won't you? After all, it wouldn't be very nice of you to leave me as the ONLY lunatic in this particular asylum, would it?!