Let it snow both inside and outside

 

Let it Snow
58" x 58"
Started November 2022
Finished March 5, 2023

I've been wanting to have several quilts available to hang up as the seasons change.  I made Leafing Summer Behind for the Fall and wanted one for Winter.

There were several snowflake quilts that had caught my eye. What I loved about this pattern was the extra inner snowflake making it even fancier than the others I had seen.

Originally, I thought I could make my own pattern using graph paper, but this design seemed a bit more complicated. I had seen the pattern (called First Flake Quilt by Janae Shearer) on Etsy so I knew that I could always purchase it.

When I was ready to make my quilt, the pattern was no longer available. Oh, what to do?

I started searching the hashtag #firstflakequilt and found Janae Shearer on Instagram. I sent her a message asking if I might purchase the pattern. By the end of the day, I had the pattern!

For the fabric, I found a tone-on-tone white on the flat fold table. The blue was a backing fabric with swirls that I used for both the front, the backing, and the binding. I thought the swirls would look like the wind. 

The pattern called for sewing several long 2 1/2" strips together and then subcutting these into 2 1/2" strips again. Making the squares this way made it much easier to match up all the seams rather than cutting all of the necessary squares. The entire quilt was made from squares and half-square triangles of blue & white.

I finished the top during November. Then the project stalled waiting to be finished due to other projects coming up.

2023 is the year of finishing my quilts!

We had a major snowstorm the last week of February/the first week of March and it was the perfect time to finally get it quilted. Hurray! While it was snowing outside, I was inside watching the snow and quilting on my snowflake.

For the quilting, I did straight-line quilting around the white snowflake so it would pop.

Next I chose to do a swirl motif over the blue fabric. I had done swirls before but only a few times and never over an entire quilt. I really wanted to practice this motif and become competent at making the swirls. I did practice a bit but mostly I just jumped into the deep end and started sewing. The thread was a blue color that almost perfectly matched the blue fabric. There were plusses and minuses for this. The plus was that even if I made mistakes in the quilting, they were camouflaged. The negative was that it was hard to see where I had already quilted resulting in some gaps. I went back afterwards and filled in anywhere I had missed the quilting.

Although I had wanted to finish this quilt prior to Christmas, this quilt's story became unique because I was able to quilt it while the snowflakes were falling outside.

We had one last snowfall. I took my quilt outside and threw it onto the fresh snow so I could take a photo of it in its "natural" environment. I love how my snowflake looks in the snow. 

Now that the snow has come and gone, it is springtime. I'm looking forward to hanging it up Winter 2023.

Every quilt tells a story. This is the story of finishing a snowflake quilt in the middle of the snowstorm of 2023 and becoming confident in doing a swirl motif for an entire quilt.

Every Quilt Tells A Story
Whether it is the fabrics chosen, the design, the colors, the occasion, the recipient, or the people I quilt with, every quilt tells a story. This blog captures in images and words what has been created for others and for my own home through the hum and stitching of my sewing machine.