Hive 4 July Tutorial - Christmas in July

Hey team! My apologies for the late posting of this tutorial, and many thanks for being patient with me. Most of you have already since this on Instagram (since we are an Instagram hive) but here it is in blog format for posterity sake. Or something. Ha. 

My family and I were on vacation in Florida, and I'm going to go ahead and count it as a huge win that I finished and mailed my June blocks and finished all the photos for this tutorial before we left. We took the kids to Disney World for the first (and probably ONLY) time -- that place is expensive! Regardless, we had a blast. Walked over 20,000 steps every day we were there (kids probably more: small legs, you know), hit as many rides as we could, explored, ate, and had a blast. Then we went to the beach for 3 days to recover from our vacation. Ha!

Seems weird to be making Christmas blocks in July, but maybe, just maybe, this might ensure I have a Christmas by Christmas. Though, honestly, we're probably talking Christmas 2023 at the earliest. This is an easy, peasy block, and goes together really quickly. It's improv, so really, do NOT over think it!!

This is a Christmas quilt, and I'm sticking with classic Christmas colors. Please choose bright, saturated reds and greens as well as Christmas prints in those color and low volumes. Reds should be "true red" not burgundy or trending towards orange. Greens can veer toward the yellow end, but please stay away from olive/army or dark spruce greens. 

This is improv, and I'm not telling you what size to make your trees. I'll fill in the spaces when I put the quilt together. Here's what you do.  Cut a couple rectangles of the same size: at least 2, but you can stack up to 6 or so. Make 4 cuts as indicated below. 

Now that you have cut your improv tree shape, mix and match the triangle (tree) with the background. 

Add a strip of gray or brown to the middle of the bottom background pieces for the tree trunk. 

Flip the tree fabric so it's right sides together with the first background piece. The first piece you sew will be the background size with the angled cut, not the one with a single straight cut. The tip of your tree should stick out at the ¼" mark. Sew with a ¼" seam allowance. 

Since this is improv, we didn't include seam allowances, and the background will not match up with the base of your tree when you finish sewing. Sew the other size of the background on to the other size of the tree. Sew the trunk into the base background pieces. 

Trim the base of the tree top and the top of the tree trunk so you have a straight edge to line up . Sew the 2 pieces together. 

Repeat for the remaining trees. Square your blocks to any size.