UFO Finish ~ Snow On The Farm ~ Test Block

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! Oh yes, quilty friends, I’m a total snow fanatic and eagerly anticipate that first frosty flurry. In my dream winter wonderland, the boring brown Podunk landscape gets buried under a fluffy white blanket from early November straight through to March.  Of course, I wouldn’t want blizzard conditions.  Just enough snow to make snow angels, build snowmen, and craft snow forts to hide a stockpile of snowballs for launching at Mr. Podunk when he gets home from work... HAHA! 

And let’s not forget sledding! Unfortunately, the only hills around here are packed with trees, and at my age, trees and sledding don’t mix well. The next best thing? Taking the truck into town and spinning some glorious donuts in the snow covered Walmart parking lot. That’s classic Podunk entertainment, something we may or may not have indulged in back in the day!  But these days we tend to keep our winter entertainment simple with no chances of crashing or visits from the police.

Since I see snow as one of life's many simple pleasures, I thought it only fitting to keep the quilting on this quilt simple.  The crosshatching lines were drawn on the quilt before loading it to the quilt frame.   Doing ruler work typically takes longer than free motion but not on this quilt due to the large scale of the quilting.  She was quilted and off the frame in a little over an hour.

The quilt back was made (not one solid piece of fabric, more on that in a bit) using the leftover fabric from the quilt top. By the way, it's old Walmart fabric from back in the early 2000's.

I usually like to store my quilt tops with backing and binding so they're ready to go without any hassle when it's time to quilt. But for some reason, this quilt top bundle ended up in the chaotic mess you see here. Clearly, I must have been drunk on the day this was stored and I don't even drink!  Thankfully, trimming off the wonky edge gave me just enough fabric to piece it into a quilt backing.

When I say just enough, I mean teetering on the edge of disaster. I thought about adding a strip of white fabric at the bottom of the backing but decided to live dangerously instead and leave it as is.  She was carefully loaded onto the quilt frame with scraps of 100% polyester batting, and she quilted beautifully, leaving just a tiny sliver of backing fabric at the bottom of the quilt.

As always, a simple label had been added to the backing before quilting.

 In my opinion this quilt needed a simple white binding.  Anything else would have taken away from the beauty of the snowflake.  To keep things quick and easy the binding was 100% attached by machine.

Remember the title of this post said test block?  Well, I designed this block in 2015, original post here.   I never planned to make a larger quilt using the large snowflake block, but a friend suggested it could be a simple and quick Christmas quilt pattern back when I had my pattern writing business.  I reluctantly put together a pattern and quilt, and honestly, it looks pretty dull, doesn't it?  You’re probably thinking, why a black snowflake? Well, no deep reason, black and white Christmas decor was just all the rage back then. I was trying to sell quilt patterns by making them trendy and not my normal happy bright colors.  It worked!  I sold a ton of this quilt pattern.

And here's the photo that made this pattern fly out of my shop.  Add a little of my favorite color(red) and a few pillows, then put the quilt on point on the bed and TADA!  She looks pretty cozy and inviting, doesn't she?  These days, this quilt and the black pillows are with my son, adding a cozy touch to his couch during the holiday season. 

Yep, I love to play in the snow!

Pin It