This is the final month for the A Season of Grace block of the month project and the culmination of lots of hard work and fun.  Pat Sloan, quilt and fabric designer, and I did this Christmas project together, and in February 2009 the patterns debuted on Pat's website.  Late starting?  You can still find the introductory flyer and general directions for the blocks there.  Pat has archived all blocks for us and will leave them there for at least a year, so there's still time.

 

The quilt is based on a stocking quilt described in Sister's Choice, book five of my Shenandoah Album series about quilters in the Shenandoah Valley.  Each month Pat or I posted a stocking pattern for two different versions of the quilt, a 12 block decorative stocking quilt and a 24 block Advent quilt with removable stockings to fill. 

 

The photo shown here is the finished "decorative" stocking quilt, which Pat made.  I'll post mine next week since I'm still finishing the quilting and attaching stockings, but will also blog about it with larger and better photos then, so check back.  You'll also get to see Pat's pieced quilt backing, which is beyond cute. (Wow, warning, warning, there's a LOT of finishing work on this.  I'm done with everything but sewing the loops on the last few rows of stockings, but I'm traveling, so check back in July for the finished photo.)

 

The link to the final pdf pattern is at the bottom of this page, and the scroll bar to get there is directly on the right-----)  See it? (Some of you had problems with this.) 

 

To encourage you to get moving on your stocking quilt, Pat and I came up with a GRAND PRIZE incentive of goodies from our libraries and stashes.  Participating quilters posted them in our new Flickr Season of Grace group folder.  Now, at the end of the project, we've randomly selected a quilter who finished the quilt.  Sarah Doty wins the final drawing, but before her Cathy Leitner won our interim prize. 

 

The Flickr group is here for your viewing pleasure.  If posting at Flickr confuses you, go here for a how-to complete with video, prepared by wonderful Margi Borck, the Maverick Crafter.  Margi has promised to help, even to post for you if necessary, so you can email her at mborck@charter.net for assistance.

 

We have so enjoyed doing this, and hope you've enjoyed participating.  The finished quilts are awesome, and will be enjoyed by everyone who sees them.  We hope they'll be passed through generations.