HST Trees

This is Winter Moonlight, the complete opposite of Amanda's quilt.  I love this traditional tree pattern and since it is my first time using significant numbers of half square triangles,  I made every one of these trees at least 3 times.  And the green fabric stretches like crazy on the bias.  Judy at my local quilt shop gave good advice though.  The pattern that I used didn't mention squaring with a traingular ruler or pressing and she said that if I wanted my points to match, I should press and square every time I put in a seam. And she was correct.  It did make it almost possible, but of course, like anything else, practice is needed.  Don't look closely, the triangles don't perfectly match, but with some hand quilting, I'm thinking they will be close enough.  The circle on the top is the moon (which will be significantly smaller when appliqued in place) and the red bird on the bottom is supposed to be a cardinal, though right now it looks more like a perky little wren.  It may need a new shape.  We will see.  I'm using a narrow 3/4" dark red for a border and then thinking about piecing the words Winter Moonlight on the left hand side of the quilt.  I'm going to piece the letters and see if they fit with the rather traditional pattern before deciding about the words.  There will also be a 4" dark green border.  I want to hand quilt using a traditional crosshatch pattern following the triangles.  The quilt is not huge, about 55"x75" or so, but it will make a fabulous wallhanging in my home.  Just for fun, I want to also make another one with scrappy red/gold/green triangles on an off white batik background as the summer/fall variety.  Presumably, the second one will be easier...  This quilt is already one of my favorites.  I looked at it this morning and had to remind myself that I actually made it.  It is going to look pretty cool.