Quilt with a hole in it

I just assembled a quilt top with an intentional hole in it. Let me explain.

I'm doing the Hearts A Flutter BOM in Civil War Repro fabrics to give my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas, if all goes well. I have the ten monthly blocks appliqued so far, and recently bought fabric for the sashing, border and backing. It would be cutting it pretty tight to get the final December block appliqued, the top assembled and hustle it to my longarmer to be done before Christmas, so today I cut out the sashing and border and sewed together the top with the ten blocks I have, leaving gaps in the sashing to add the remaining blocks in November and December. It looks a little strange, but I wanted to get a jump on completing it. The applique patterns haven't been emailed to us exactly on the first of each month, so if December's is late, I may still have to wrap a photograph of the top for their present and give it to them after the holidays.

On another front, I'm finally putting together my teacup quilt from the failed block swap (see here ). It has to be called a coffee cup quilt now, though, because I'm using the Bistro line from Moda, which has coffee mugs and coffee pots. Just perfect for my coffee-drinking husband; I can't stand the stuff.