Block Away

Moda Blockheads II Block 35, Gibby, was so much fun! I decided to change up the suggested color scheme yet again and try to include as many of my snowflake scraps as I could in one block. I also decided this would be a great block to make into a gradient.


Block 36, Rolling Flake, I mean, Rolling Stone, was going to have a nice crocheted white snowflake in the center until I began slicing up the pieces. I often look at the black and white block map for inspiration, and it suddenly occurred to me I could put four tiny white snowflakes in each of the corner blocks.


Except that I'm running out of design ideas for tiny snowflakes. So I thought perhaps I should incorporate the tree skirt panel leftovers once again.


The tree panel snowflake scraps are VERY scrappy and pretty darned small. Some of the flakes I picked for Block 36 were not quite big enough or even straight enough. But I knew I'd be lopping off each corner, so I decided to use pieces that probably wouldn't have been included in this quilt any other way.


Once the corner blocks were done, I just had to play around with the layout until I found something I liked.


The final arrangement turned out really cute, in my opinion. And I didn't have to applique any snowflakes!


Block 38, Anchor Point, was an adventure. I needed 12 2.5-inch strips 4.5 inches long. I didn't have enough fabric in the first three colors I picked. I finally settled on this medium blue snowflake fabric, and I was sweating beads by the time I got to the final strip. That short little piece at the top of the photo below is all I have left! But I made it!


The dark blue batik bled a bit into the white while I was pressing. I guess I haven't used that particular fabric next to such a light fabric before.

And then after I finished with the dark blue, I realized two pieces are inside out. I've done that intentionally to mute a color in the past, but it was a complete accident this time, and I wasn't about to frog the block when I noticed. You have to look really close to see the booboo, and I think that's the Quilter's Rule. If you can't see it at three feet away, it's design, not error.

In spite of the antics, this is a pretty awesome block. It's another block I can see using to make an entire quilt. When I commented to Lizard that it looks like a snowflake inside a star inside a star inside a star, he said it looks like a temple block. He's visited a few temple open houses with me, and he said the motif reminds him of some of the themes he's seen in temple architecture. I think that makes this block even more special to me.


Posting a photo of all my blocks so far in a potential layout resulted in the most comments I've ever had on any post I've ever done.


I'm also a "visual storyteller" and "conversation starter" now. Wow!


One of the questions I frequently get is what line of fabric am I using. Well, it's about 22 years of collecting blue snowflake fabrics.






I thought it might be fun to share some of the projects I've made with blue snowflake fabrics I've collected over the years. I don't have pictures of everything I've made because 22 years ago, I didn't know I'd one day wish I had pictures of everything I've ever made. I'm not sure I was taking pictures of everything I made 15 years ago... Ten years ago, maybe!


McKenna Ryan's "Moose Junction" is one of the first projects into which I incorporated several different blue snowflake fabrics.


Some of the fabrics I used for my first wall hanging (which still hangs above my bed to this day) were leftovers from one of the first panel projects I ever made... polar bear pillows and quillows for my adopted kiddos for their first Christmas together with me. Below is a segment of the coordinating curtains I made for their bedrooms back then (a different fabric than the quillows, but you get the idea).


The pillows and quillows are long gone, but I still today have a few small scraps from our Snow and Klondike days!

In the annals of undocumented snowflake stitching (that I can remember) are at least two aprons, about four pinafores, some doll dresses and doll quilts, a big wallful of lap quilts, even more quillows, a ton of pillows and pin cushions, a twirly skirt, numerous scrunchies, at least two crochet bags different than the one shown below, a dinosaur and a pony. Man, I should make another snowflake pony, but with a single horn on its head!!!


Snowflake Heartburn is the granddaddy of all my WIPs. I don't know that it will ever get done. Once I began collecting blue snowflake fabrics, I thought it would be cool to include at least one block of every fabric in this quilt. When I first began, I didn't have enough varieties of fabric to make all the blocks different, so there were five or six blocks of each. Last time I pulled the project out, I replaced all the duplicates, and if this quilt ever does get finished, each snowflake fabric block will be unique.


Charmed by Snowflakes probably is my favorite finished blue snowflake quilt so far. I think Blockheads will jump ahead of it by miles!


I've used some scraps in ticker tape quilts.


There are other quilts still waiting to be finished.


Sometimes I use a blue snowflake fabric I don't like as much for the backing and/or binding of a quilt.




Some snowflake strip leftovers got fashioned into a new winter crochet bag.


There also are a host of panels and background fabrics that have yet to be made into quilts and/or other projects.






As well as fabrics still waiting to be made into clothes.


Some blue snowflake fabric did make it into my wardrobe.




I even made my own turquoise snowflake batik, which I incorporated into a jumper.




I've also made blue snowflake fabric of my own via Spoonflower.






Scraps from my Spoonflower fabrics are making their way into a few of the Blockhead blocks. I'm thinking about incorporating one of my Spoonflower snowflake fabrics into a block of its own. I'm still determined to make my quilt different from the other potential 31,000 quilts being made during this challenge!


Linking up with Busy Hands Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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