Christmas Scrap Quilts with Diane Harris
Diane Harris, of Stash Bandit, is a scrap quilter by preference and a quilt designer by trade. As far as Diane is concerned, a successful scrap quilt is a combination of skill, talent, and luck. “There’s always an element of luck involved in coming up with good quilt design,” she says. Case in point: Diane’s scrap quilt MerryJoyCheer. “I bought three reject blocks at a guild garage sale—the candlestick, the pine tree next to the Merry block, and the Joy block. I wanted to make something interesting,” she says of the quilt’s beginnings. She hadn’t been terribly interested in Christmas quilts prior to making it; now she can’t get enough, claiming she could make them for the rest of her life and still be happy. The experience of making MerryJoyCheer—which took four years from beginning to end—prompted her to make more Christmas quilts. It also prompted her to develop a trunk show of holiday quilts that range from super-traditional to fun-and-funky. She purposely didn’t want all the quilts to be red and green. Instead, she challenged herself to expand the palettes to include more modern colors, such as pink and navy, which could still read as Christmas. “I like energy,” she says. “I feel like the fabrics I pick are vital; they speak of movement.” Whether by going scrappy or trying out unexpected shades, give yourself the gift of creativity by stretching your “Christmas palette” in new directions! Read more about Diane Harris in the November/December 2018 issue of Quilty magazine, or check out her patterns!
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