Flowering Snowball Quilt finish!

I finished my Flowering Snowball quilt this week! You may remember that I started hand quilting it and then changed my mind. I'm so glad I did. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

You may also remember that I was struggling with the thread basting stitches getting caught up in the foot. Well, one of you geniuses suggested I remove the basting stitches as I prepared to quilt each section. That helped tremendously! Such a simple solution. Why didn't I think of it?

I really loved the straight lines in the background that I was hand quilting and was able to do it by machine with no problem. I did these straight lines with my free-motion foot (drew them with a disappearing marker first), sneaking along the seam between the lines. They turned out really well. I was worried about how straight they would be - but not too bad. And, really, I don't think my hand quilted lines would have been perfectly straight either.

Here's a full shot in the soft afternoon light. Such a great pattern!

You can learn more about the pattern, the templates and making the quilt in my earlier post!

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Flowering Snowball Quilt

I shared a glimpse of my Flowering Snowball Quilt and several of you asked for more info. I'm back today with more pictures and the scoop on just how to make it!

I started with several pieces of Emmy Grace by Bari J for Art Gallery fabrics. It became my color inspiration of greens, blues, pinks, gold and grays. Then as usual, for variety I added lots of coordinating prints from my stash {and because, really, I have to use some of this stash!}.

The pattern is from Mary at Molly Flanders Makerie. You can find the full schedule of posts here. I chose to buy templates and got them from Custom Plastic on etsy. If they're not listed, you can just send Rodney a message and he will list them for you.

The only change I made to Mary's instructions was the pressing of the seam allowances. For half the blocks I pressed the seams toward the print fabric and for the other half I pressed toward the white fabric. I alternated the two blocks in the quilt so the seams were easier to match up. And it seemed to work perfectly...

I'm so enamored with the circles that form when you put the blocks together!

Up next is quilting this one and I'm seriously considering hand quilting it - very simply - just echoing the pattern. 

You can see more Flowering Snowball quilts on flickr or Instagram using the hashtag #floweringsnowballalong

Linking up to Molly Flanders Flowering Snowball Along!

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