Category Archives: snowball blocks

Better Late Than Never

by Dawn Posted on December 16, 2025

I really thought I would have this holiday wall hanging/table runner completed by Thanksgiving. After all, I started it in August. Here it is the week before Christmas and I just finished tacking down the binding this afternoon. That’s cutting it close! Take a look:

Oh dear! I see I am holding it upside down. Oh well. It actually works either way but this block is the one I planned to be at the top:

The quilting was pretty straightforward. Using my walking foot I stitched in the ditch around the borders of the octagons and narrow strips between blocks and then quilted straight lines 1″ apart on the rest of the quilt.

I wish you could see all the sparkle this little quilt has. Most of the fabrics in the octagons have metallic gold in them and the background fabric glints with gold or silver, depending on the light. Here’s a close-up:

Check out the filigreed antlers on the reindeer. They’re metallic, too:

Although I favor pieced backings, the back of this quilt is a single piece of one of the prints used on the front. It’s so pretty I could use the back side for a table runner if I were so inclined.

I’m trying to find just the right place for this quilt, which measures 18¾” x 55″. It still needs a label but I have decided on a name. Most of the prints I used are from the 2024 “Enchanted Christmas” line by Makower UK Fabrics so I am naming this quilt Enchanted Forest in honor of the majestic reindeer inhabiting it.

P.S. You might be interested to know I used single-fold binding on this quilt. My tutorial on single-fold binding is trending on my website right now so if you haven’t checked it out yet, take a look.

 

 

 

Posted in home dec, single-fold binding, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, table runner, update, wall hanging | 7 Comments

Silver Threads Among the Gold

by Dawn Posted on September 27, 2025

The piecing of my current project, a holiday wall quilt made from my Season to Taste pattern, is complete:

Here’s a close-up of the top block with the accent strips added above and below:

You can probably tell that most of the fabrics in the kaleidoscope triangles have gold metallic accents but what you can’t see is that the background fabric also has a touch of metallic. This particular shade of white “Grunge” by BasicGrey for Moda Fabrics has a slightly yellowish cast in places that looks like gold but there are also silver metallic threads running all through the fabric that add even more sparkle. The effect is subtle but sophisticated.

I’m eager to get a backing made and get this quilted. Inspiration hasn’t yet struck on a name. The fabric line is “Enchanted Christmas” by Makower UK Fabrics so maybe I should name this small quilt Enchanted Forest in honor of the majestic reindeer inhabiting it. Just look at those gold filigreed antlers!

 

 

 

Posted in home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, table runner, update, wall hanging | 3 Comments

“Season To Taste” Update

by Dawn Posted on September 15, 2025

The latest version of my kaleidoscope pattern Season to Taste is coming along, albeit at a snail’s pace. Carving out time to spend in my sewing room when the garden is in full swing is a tough row to hoe. How’s that for mixing metaphors?

Here’s a shot of the first block, with my pattern shown for reference:

Finally I got the second and third blocks put together. It took an inordinate amount of time (i.e. a ridiculously long time) to settle on the final placement of the triangles in each block, especially the triangles containing the reindeer. Even though I envision this as a wall hanging with a definite layout from top to bottom, I couldn’t help but consider what the blocks would look like in a table runner. I wanted the reindeer to be well placed no matter whether the quilt was viewed as vertical (as in a wall hanging) or horizontal (as in a table runner). Crazy, I know!

So this is where we are:


No turning back now. I’ve sewn the white corner triangles on the blocks. They’re slightly oversized so I can trim them to exact size before sewing the strips between the blocks.

Here are close-ups of the other two blocks, first the middle one . . .

. . . and then the bottom one:

 

So close now! Let’s hope you won’t have to wait too long for the next blog post showing the completed quilt top.

 

 

 

Posted in home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, table runner, update, wall hanging | 2 Comments

It’s a Wrap: Lilacs in September

by Dawn Posted on November 2, 2020

Presenting . . . Lilacs in September. The little quilt started 12 years ago to use up some leftover blocks is finally finished. I stitched the label on yesterday. But there was one more thing to do before I could call it a wrap: the quilt got tossed into the washer and dryer. I love the look and feel of a freshly laundered quilt, don’t you? Such puckery goodness:

Here’s a look at the whole quilt:

It’s a very simple design: nine patches alternating with snowball blocks. I jazzed it up a little by angling the corners, adding a flange, and finishing it with a narrow and wide border.

Here’s a look at the simple pieced back, jazzed up with a single Quatrefoil block:

Lilacs in September finished at 50″ x 56″ — a good size for a lap quilt. I’ve just moved it to the back of my chair in the TV room. The next time I plop down in my chair to read a book or watch TV, I’ll throw it across my legs to keep myself warm. See what I mean? It’s a wrap!

 

 

 

Posted in Quatrefoil, snowball blocks, update | 10 Comments

A Late Bloomer

by Dawn Posted on October 11, 2020

Off to the longarm quilter’s one day and ready for pick-up the next! I certainly landed in her queue at just the right time. Here’s a great in-process shot of the quilting Karlee of SewInspired2Day did on my 12-year-old UFO, newly named Lilacs in September:

I was surprised and delighted that Karlee was able to do an edge-to-edge design over the flange on this quilt top. I was sure that folded strip of fabric would get flipped back on itself when the needle traveled over it from the center of the quilt. Turns out Karlee’s longarm has a special foot for sewing over flanges. And she also basted the flange down first, removing the basting stitches after quilting.

The quilting motif is called Abundant Feathers. I was going for a traditional look for this very traditional nine-patch and snowball block design. Here’s a look at the finished front:


A couple of close-ups:


The thread is a pale grey, which blends with all the fabrics. The quilted feathers enhance the quilt without overpowering it.

Here’s a look at the back . . .

. . . including a detail of the singleton Quatrefoil block:


After trimming the quilt, I laid it on the floor to measure it (51″ x 57″) and take photos. Guess who appeared out of nowhere? Yep. Princess Cordelia, aka Coco.

If she’s not on the quilt, she’s under it:


Oh, about the name Lilacs in September. I was inspired by a 1995 British film called Daisies in December, starring Jean Simmons and Josh Ackland. Filmed in Cornwall, it tells the story of a grumpy senior citizen dumped at a seaside retirement home for two weeks by his vacationing family. He’s determined to have a rotten time. Of course he meets someone interesting . . . but there’s a complication. I had a copy of this film on VHS back in the day. It’s never been released as a DVD in the U.S. but it can be seen on Amazon Prime via the Hallmark Channel. I actually signed up the other day for a free seven-day subscription to the Hallmark Channel just so I could watch the movie again.

If daisies can bloom in December, I wondered, can lilacs bloom in September? (I pulled this quilt out of my sewing room closet on the last day of September.) The answer is yes: although many varieties bloom in spring, there are some later-blooming varieties. You could say this quilt is a late bloomer, given the number of years it’s been in my closet.

Now on to the binding. My first fabric of choice would be the medium dark blue fabric of the inner border. It would make a nice frame for the quilt. Second choice would be the light cornflower blue print of the outer border. After 12 years I didn’t have much hope that I’d find either fabric still in my stash. Oh, happy day! After looking just now I found a 16″ strip of the outer border fabric, more than enough for the binding strips. How perfectly providential!

 

 

 

Posted in cats, Quatrefoil, snowball blocks, update | 10 Comments

Quatrefoil

by Dawn Posted on October 9, 2020

Isn’t that a lovely block design? It’s called “Quatrefoil,” which means four leaves, and it’s been around a long time. I’ve had my eye on this block ever since a student pointed me to Jenny Doan’s tutorial on the Missouri Star Quilt Company’s website. Jenny’s demo features a charming quilt made from precut 10″ squares from a single line of fabric.

I made one 12″ block — dressed up with a fussycut center — to add a little pizzazz to a quilt backing:


The block really deserves to be showcased in a full quilt because the four-patches in the corners form a secondary pattern. If you search for “quatrefoil quilts” on Instagram or Pinterest you’ll see some wonderful examples. My singleton quatrefoil really doesn’t do the quilt block design justice.

The backing you see above was made for the the quilt top I showed you in my last post, the one with snowball blocks and nine-patches that languished in my sewing room closet for a good dozen years. It was sandwiched and partially quilted but I never got very far with it. When I decided to have it quilted by a professional longarm quilter I knew I’d have to make a new backing because longarmers require four extra inches of batting and backing on all four sides to make sure the layers of the quilt can be loaded properly on the frames of their quilting machines. Quilters using their domestic sewing machines typically don’t need to do that.

Even if I had wanted to finish the original quilt sandwich myself I would have needed a new backing because there were two fade lines in the backing fabric where the quilt was folded. I have no idea how those fade lines got there because as far as I recall the backing was never exposed to sunlight. Can fadelines occur in dark closets?? Inquiring minds want to know.

In any case, I was able to salvage part of the original backing fabric and added a couple of other pieces from my stash that work well with the fabrics on the front. The quilt top and back were delivered today to Karlee Sandell of Sewinspired2Day to work her magic. I expect I will have something to show you very soon.

 

 

 

Posted in Quatrefoil, snowball blocks, update | 2 Comments

September Song

by Dawn Posted on September 30, 2020

Can you picture Frank Sinatra crooning the lyrics to September Song?

“Oh it’s a long long while from May to December . . .”

[never truer than in the time of COVID!]

“But the days grow short when you reach September. . .”

We’ve actually reached the end of September. And until today I hadn’t worked on a single quilt the entire month. Can you believe that? Oh, I did some sewing in September: a few face masks, a pair of pillowcases, a bucket hat. I also worked on a fun home decorating project over the weekend that I’ll tell you about in a bit.

But a quilt? Not until today, when I pulled out this throw-sized quilt top I pieced a dozen years ago:

This little quilt came into being because I had a stack of 9-patch blocks left over from another project. (That’s a lot of leftover blocks, right? A confession: I had pressed the seams in the wrong direction while strip-sewing.) I combined the 9-patches with some snowball blocks, set them all on point, and created this 52″ x 58″ throw.

This project was ready to quilt back in 2008. I had pin-basted it to the batting and backing and had actually sewn a single line of stitching. One line! I have no memory of why I didn’t continue but I have no desire to finish quilting it myself now. My “quiltmaking” today consisted of removing all the basting pins and getting the layers ready to deliver to a longarm quilter.

My plan was to have it quilted with a simple edge-to-edge design. Then I realized that because I added a flange to the interior, the quilt will probably need to be custom quilted. Here’s a close-up of the flange:

Some of the fabrics are ones I would probably not buy now but I like the top well enough to want to finish it.

Now about that home dec project:

My husband and I took our first trip since the pandemic arrived on our shores, driving from Portland to Bend last Thursday to spend a delightful long weekend with my stepmother Shirley. While there I made two tailored bedskirts for her extra-long twin beds. Shirley recently bought new bedspreads with a nautical theme featuring navy and aqua images on a white background. We decided on a solid navy fabric for the bedskirts.

Here’s a look at the pattern I made on graph paper along with the fabric, a navy blender (almost a solid) called “Shadowplay” by Maywood that I like so much I buy it by the bolt:

You may be able to tell from my pattern that the bedskirts have one inverted pleat along the end and two on each side. Because of the dark fabric and the lighting in Shirley’s bedroom I wasn’t able to get good pictures of the completed bedskirts but they did turn out beautifully. You’ll just have to take my word for it!

 

 

 

Posted in bedskirt, family, home dec, snowball blocks, update | 5 Comments

Throwback Thursday: Square Dance (2014)

by Dawn Posted on January 30, 2020

Throwback Thursday already?? It seems impossible but we are in the final week of January, Week 5 (and Year 5) of my 10-year-lookback at quilts. I started with 2010 at the beginning of the month and now I’m up to 2014.

In Square Dance you see my interpretation of the classic Twist block. Every Twist quilt I’ve ever seen features a solid fabric in the center of each block and two fabrics for the lattice. My version incorporates a lovely folk art floral in the center of each block and 12 fabrics in the lattice — four each of rose, green, and purple:

Square Dance, 55½” x 64½” (2014)

It was quite a challenge getting the balance of fabrics just right but I was very pleased with the outcome.

The beautiful quilting by Melissa Hoffman of Fiddlestitches is hard to see so here’s a close-up:

I remember Melissa telling me she had to wear a headlamp to stitch the free-motion filigree design in the interior of the quilt. Black thread on solid black fabric: what a challenge that must have been!

Square Dance is one of my quilts in rotation on the back of the couch in our living room. In fact, it’s there right now, and I managed to get a shot just now while the sun was briefly shining:

 

 

 

 

Posted in free motion quilting, home dec, snowball blocks, Throwback Thursday, update | 4 Comments

A Slight Miscalculation. . .

by Dawn Posted on January 18, 2019

Have you ever made a block that didn’t turn out quite like you expected? Perhaps you were surprised by one of the elements but kept on making the block, not realizing you had made an error. That’s what happened to me a few days ago when I made a test block of Star Drops, designed by Margot Languedoc of the Pattern Basket.

Before I bought the pattern I had studied the design, guessing (correctly) that the outer star points were made from hourglass units that were trimmed on one long side. When I made my test block I resized it from 6″ to 12″ finished, adding an additional design element at the last minute. I wrote about that in my last post.

When I trimmed the hourglass units using the calculations I had made for a block that was double in size, I was surprised that the small triangle in the center wasn’t larger. And when I converted the center square into a snowball block by adding a triangle at each corner, I was surprised that the triangles were larger than the ones in the hourglass blocks. I concluded it was because the center square is larger than the other blocks.

I was wrong.

I had cut a quarter-inch too much off the hourglass units. That’s why the blue triangles were smaller than I expected. Oops! And then I cut the four corner squares a quarter of an inch too small. Oops again. My block was supposed to measure 12½” unfinished but it’s a half-inch shy of that.

To illustrate the difference, I drew the blocks in the software program EQ7:

The one on the left is a mock-up of the block I made. You can see that four of the triangles are larger than the other four. This block measures 12″ unfinished, 11½” finished.

The block on the right is a mock-up of what my block would have looked like had I trimmed the hourglass blocks properly and made the corner squares the correct size. It measures 12½” unfinished, 12″ finished. (I’m sure this star block has been made many times before and has a name but I haven’t actively searched for it yet. If you happen to know, kindly leave a comment.)

What to do about my oddly sized block? Well, if it were destined for a quilt of 12″ finished blocks, I’d have a real problem. Happily, I am planning to incorporate this block into a Junior Billie Bag panel that finishes at 14″ x 17″ so I’ll simply cut the sashing strips a bit wider to compensate.

So my block is actually a mistake. But you know what? I love it anyway!

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Billie Bag, Junior Billie Bag, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, update | 6 Comments

The Perfect Excuse

by Dawn Posted on January 12, 2019

I’m teaching a Junior Billie Bag workshop next month so I had the perfect excuse to make a 12″ test block for one of the front/back panels. I’ve been wanting to try Margot Languedoc’s Star Drops pattern since first seeing her charming design on Instagram last year. She has several patterns I want to make, all of which are pictured on her website, the Pattern Basket.

I bought the pattern and studied the construction. Her block finishes at 6″ so I resized it to finish at 12″. Here are the components of my block ready to sew together:


Just as I was getting ready to pin the rows, a thought occurred to me. What would the block look like with eight blue points instead of four? I made a snowball block from the center square using the stitch-and-flip method and wound up with this:


I have double Star Drops! The blue triangles are larger around the center square because the center block is larger than all the other blocks.

As good as the block looks as a square, look at it on point:

Is that not sensational??

It appears my next Junior Billie Bag will be black and blue and white. The floral print in the center of the block is one of several pieces I bought last April in a fit of fabric lust and wrote about here. I think I will make a kaleidoscope block out of that floral for the other front/back panel of my Junior Billie Bag.

 

 

 

Posted in Billie Bag, Junior Billie Bag, snowball blocks, stitch-and-flip corners, update | 6 Comments