My most favorite handmade Christmas gifts of 2010!

A few years ago I was chatting with Stephanie about Christmas gifts, and she mentioned the idea of drafting a family tree and having it printed on Spoonflower. Sounds like a great idea if you can draw. Or if you can use the fancy illustrator computer programs. Unfortunately, I have neither of those skills. Lucky for me, I can applique and quilt though!
I drew all of these applique pieces myself (this is honest to goodness the extent of my drawing capabilities), but many of the images were inspired by pieces that I found on flickr, such as this and this.
This family tree was for my mom and step-dad.

My mom and step dad with their wedding year:

Details:

 Most of the fabrics are batiks. I machine appliqued all of the pieces, then hand embroidered the names, quilted them and bound them. I quilted the background in a small meandering and finished off the borders with straight lines about 1/2" apart. I should be able to add names to the tree if I hand embroider carefully!
I think my favorite part of this tree is the black batik border. Although I also love the color variations in the leaves. And the birds. OK, I can't pick a favorite part!

And this is the family tree for my in-laws:

 Details:

 I love that the heavy trunk of the tree leant itself to the heart "carving". And at the base of the tree, my in laws.

This quilt was assembled and quilted in the same way as the first. The major difference is that I added our last name to the tree. It seemed to fit well with the design, whereas the first tree worked better another way.
Again, I have so many "favorite" parts of this quilt....the shape of the tree, the cute little acorns, the border fabric.
The two trees are so different, and I love them both! I don't think I could pick a favorite if I tried.

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