I Wish You a Merry Quilt ALong progress report

I am really enjoying the I Wish You a Merry Christmas Quilt Along!  Ten of the twelve blocks have now been released.  Here are nine of mine:

My deal with myself when I decided to start yet another project is that I can't buy anything for this project; everything (including batting and backing) is coming from stash. In the beginning I was worried about the lack of a unified look, but now I figure there is enough variety that scrappy will look just fine.

I've previously showed blocks 1-5.  However, I've redone two of those.  First, I decided that my original Santa's Belt (block #3) was too abstract to be immediately recognizable, so I redid it with solids.  I forgot to take a solo picture, but you can see in the center of photo above.

I liked Christmas Tree Farm (block 2) by Janda Bend Quilts so much that I expanded it and turned it into a holiday decoration (blog post coming) so I needed to make a second version for the quilt.  One of the QAL hosts is also doing quilt as you go and I LOVED her quilting design, so I copied it.  Don't you love the outline of the trees in the empty squares?

Block 6 was an angel designed by Sandra Healy.  I modified this one a little bit and am really pleased with my version.  I simplified to one background and added the tree as if the angel was putting the star on top.

Block 7 is a Poinsettia and comes from Sandy Star Designs.  My points don't really match on the leaves but I'm going with it anyway. I used one of the circles on the train die with my AccuQuilt to get the perfect circle for the center of the flower.

Block 8 is not pictured in the group photo, though I did make it.  It's a pair of presents and comes from Alice Samuel's Quilt Co.  After seeing a lot of quilters struggle with this block on Facebook, I decided to use the alternative instructions from host Pretty Piney and do the ribbon as all applique. I'm still not really pleased with it and I'm not sure I'm going to use it my quilt, to be honest. Many quilters used an alternate present block and I may look at options, or I may pick some other Christmas/winter element and use that instead.  Or I might decide these presents are fine any use them anyway.  I've still got a few weeks until all the blocks are released and made and I need to decide.

I had been saying from early on that I hoped for a reindeer and block 9 did not disappoint!  Snowy Days Quilting designed a fabulous reindeer block that is super cute!  The facebook community for the QAL has been really great and since I rarely make the blocks the day the pattern is released, I get to see what everyone else does before getting started.  I saw someone put a round nose on their reindeer and instantly knew I wanted a round nose, too.  Once again, I used one of the circles from the AccuQuilt die that is for a train.  I think maybe this reindeer needs a name.

That brings us to the current block from Cwilt Fabric & Haberdashery.  I admit, I didn't love the lantern when I first saw it.  But when I saw people on facebook putting a candle inside the lantern, I fell in love.  I used a candle and I took some of the other elements in the original block out, so mine is much simpler but I really like it.  Holly is another item that I hoped would show up at some point, and while this isn't strictly a holly block, it checks that box for me which makes me happy.

Only two blocks left!  I have decided that I want my quilt to be four by four, so I will make four extra blocks to bring my total up to sixteen.  Problem is, I don't want to duplicate anything and since I don't know what the last two blocks are, I can't make the extras yet.  Sigh.  I doubt this will be done before Christmas, but when I get down about that I just remember how much fun I'm having.