Christmas in Bloom

The past couple of Christmases, I paid for my daughter's AMA (Alberta Motor Association) membership as her Christmas gift. It's useful, it's practical and it doesn't take up any room, other than a card in her wallet. But I also wanted her to have something to open on Christmas morning. In addition to the usual Christmas stocking stuff, I also chose to make her a Christmas snuggle quilt. 

This is one of the few quilts I have made in which all of the fabrics in the quilt top are from the same fabric line. And it's lovely fabric. It features amyrillises (I had to google that to find out what the plural was), but it also has snowflakes and Christmas baubles. 

Choosing the thread wasn't a big deal as I just opted for the Affinity thread Christmas blend that I have in my stash. I love variegated thread, like I love variegated yarn. But for the most part, I find neither is worth the added expense, because both are more expensive than solids. With the yarn, I find that the pattern of the stitches - whether knit or crochet - disappears in the colour variegations. Especially when the variegations are more pronounced, like in the Mistletoe and Lace afghan or the Lace Enchantment afghan. In both of those, I really can't even see the actual design of the afghans because the colours are shouting so loud. When it comes to thread,, it's almost the opposite. The colour variations basically disappear against a varied print quilt top. Nevertheless, I own the thread, so I might as well use it. 

Picking a pantograph for the quilting was a little more challenging. If I had an amaryllis pantograph, I likely would have chosen it. I considered the Easter Lily pantograph, because amaryllises do look similar to lilies, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. I've seen a Christmas ornaments panotgraph that I likely would have used if I owned it. None of my other Christmas pantographs seemed suitable. except for Snow Winds. As I've mentioned, I've probably used that pantograph more than any of my others. So, Snow Winds it was. 
I used a red with white snowflake print fleece/minky backing, which I have used before in both Boxes and Bows and Christmas Sweaters. 
The quilt pattern is Allure from Fabric Cafe's book, "The Magic of 3-Yard Quilts". 

On the home front, I finally made it outside today. It was -21°C, with a wind chill of -31. But Peter wanted to go to Walmart and I was getting cabin fever from being inside so long. So I plugged in the block heater on the truck about an hour and a half before I was planning to leave, and it started fine. And when I got home, since I was already bundled up, I dumped the compost and took a few small bags of trash to the dumpster. Then I was happy to come back inside. I did plug the block heater back in again. Since this cold weather is expected to last for at least another week, I figured it's better to leave it plugged in and have the truck ready in case I need it.