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Mini Christmas Quilt Pattern | Guest Designer Carolyn Forster

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Deck the Christmas dinner table with this sew easy, sew festive mini quilt!

This mini quilt is an enlarged version of the Courthouse Steps quilt block, it is a quick project that will show off your Christmas fabrics and make a lovely table topper!

This project comes from guest designer Carolyn Forster, keen quilter and quilt teacher, who has a City and Guilds in Patchwork and Quilting. As well as featuring in various well-known quilting magazines, Carolyn has published a number of books on patchwork, both in the UK and the US. She hosts talks and workshops and will also be teaching on several Stitchtopia tours in the UK and abroad. Her project for us is this gorgeous Merry Mini Quilt and the instructions are written in her own words.

Carolyn says...

I love Log Cabin quilts and quilt blocks in all their formats. In a standard Log Cabin design, fabric strips are stitched around a central square, with the paler fabrics placed on two adjacent sides and the darker ones on the other two sides. With the Courthouse Steps variation, the strips in light tones are placed opposite each other and so are the dark tones. In this format the strips make the ‘steps’ of the design name. I’ll also be featuring a mini Sawtooth Star block for the centre square to enhance the Christmas theme.

You can make this mini quilt in the traditional way by joining the patchwork pieces to make the quilt top, layering this with the wadding/batting and backing, quilting it and then binding the whole thing, but I like to sew with the Quilt As You Go method. It saves time in two ways: firstly, there’s no layering and basting as the layers are stitched and quilted as you sew and, secondly, it looks quilted without the addition of any extra stitch! I can’t resist adding a little Big Stitch hand quilting in a bold thread though! If you are making this as a Christmas gift or for your own table for the season’s celebrations, then I’m sure you’ll appreciate the quick techniques with so much else to do!

Around the central Sawtooth Star square, we will be attaching 2in (5cm) wide fabric strips. You can cut these to length before you begin, but sometimes when doing this the sewing will take up some of the length, and the strips may appear too short. For this reason, I cut my strips to length as I go.

You’ll want a selection of festive fabrics for this piece, either width of fabric or fat quarters: I used Liberty Fabrics, Festive Fair and Liberty Quilting Silhouette cream on cream for my version. Note that you will need ten light-toned strips and ten dark-toned ones. These can all be different, or you can cut two strips from each fabric.

Finished size: 21½ x 21½in (54.5 x 54.5cm)

Centre star: 6in (15.25cm) finished

Note: use a ¼in (5mm) seam allowance throughout.

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You will need:

Equipment

• Sewing machine 
• 12wt cotton perle for Big Stitch hand quilting 
• No. 6 embroidery or Betweens needle for Big Stitch quilting 
• Pencil 
• Fabric marker if you’re going to be Big Stitch quilting: I use a Hera marker 
• Optional: seam roller 

Materials

• Red fabric for the Sawtooth Star: 4¼in (10.75cm) x width of fabric 
• Gold fabric for the Sawtooth Star: 3½in (9cm) x width of fabric 
• Light-coloured festive fabrics: five to ten 2in (5cm) strips x width of fabric OR ten 2in (5cm) strips 22in (56cm) wide  
• Darks: five to ten 2in (5cm) strips x width of fabric OR ten 2in (5cm) strips 22in (56cm) wide 
• 24in x 24in (61 x 61cm) of backing fabric: I used Liberty Quilting, Mamie Field, wide width 
• 24 x 24in (61 x 61cm) of wadding/batting: I used 100 percent cotton batting (Vlieseline 276 natural cotton white) as this will stick to the backing fabric and there’s no need for extra basting while you sew 
• 5in (13cm) x width of fabric for the binding: I used a festive red fabric 

Cut:

• From the red fabric for the Sawtooth Star cut one 4¼in (10.75cm) square and four 2in (5.08cm) squares  
• From the gold fabric for the Sawtooth Star cut one 3½in (9cm) square and four 2 3/8in (6cm) squares  
• If you prefer to pre-cut your 2in (5cm) fabric strips in advance, from your ‘lights’ cut two strips 6½in (16.5cm), two strips 9½in (24.25cm), two strips 12½in (31.75cm), two strips 15½in (39.5cm) and two strips 18½in (47cm) 
• If you prefer to pre-cut your 2in (5cm) fabric strips in advance, from your ‘darks’ cut two strips 9½in (24.25cm), two strips 12½in (31.75cm), two strips 15½in (39.5cm), two strips 18½in (47cm) and two strips 21½in (54.5cm) 
• For the binding, cut two strips 2½in (6.5cm) x width of fabric 

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