Christmas Circles and Hexagons

I love working with circles in quilting. What?!! Having to turn those edges under and hand appliqué? No! Not me! I draw a circle on a square of fabric using a plastic cottage cheese (or yogurt) lid, or even a CD-ROM (you remember those, right?) Then I place a piece of interfacing on the right side of the fabric and sew along the line. Trim, clip, turn around and there's my perfect circle.

Interfaced circle ready to be turned and stitched down

(Check out my blog post that shows a few more of these steps for making interfaced circles.)

Make a lot of these and you have what you need to make a Christmas tree! I have this hanging in my foyer and see it many times a day as I go up and down the stairs in my house.

Christmas Tree of Circles: 34" x 39"

Then, I took this concept "to the bank" and used 16 quarters to make a holiday tree for each of my four grandchildren. Mailed them last week and they love them. What do you think of THESE circles?

Christmas Tree Quarters

Now for some hexagons (and half hexagons). Earlier in the week I shared how to cut and stitch the Twisted Hexagon block. I began making some scrappy ones with various leftover Christmas fabrics and then thought: "I don't want ANOTHER quilt!" How about some holiday trivets? I will have these on hand for a quick gift to share.

Twisted Hexagon trivets: 10" high

These are the same size blocks in my Twisted Hexagon pattern with 5" (finished) high hexagons. The half hexagons, of course, finish to 2-1/2" high. (The pattern is for the quilt, but you can easily make these trivets from the individual blocks.) There are NO y-seams. They are sewn in a log cabin manner and the first half-hexagon is stitched on with a partial seam.

Here is one block with Santa in the center. I was only able to get 3 with Santa (I have a few more to bind), but it's a great way to feature a special motif!

Twisted Hexagon with Santa

Hope I gave you a few ideas for those last minute gifts.