Look What I Can Do!

Way back when…I was trying to decided what to do with my nine patch quilt along blocks.

I auditioned some snowball blocks with black background as a potential setting.  Well, I decided not to use the blocks.  Instead, I sewed the blocks into individual quilts.

When the Joy in the New Challenge came about, one thing on my list to finish was the black snowball quilt.  Here is the result.

Yes I know the photo is awful…but so is the weather outside.  The quilt is actually really neat.  Look at the quilting design.

I had a beautiful bright colored variegated thread and it did wonders on the quilt.  In each snowball I free handed the flowers, and then quilted small pebbles around each flower.  There is no quilting in the triangles of fabric….just on the black.  The fabric POPS out and it looks awesome. 

Here’s a better photo….I had so much fun quilting this!  I took FOREVER though.  On this small quilt, 58 x 75, it took about 9 hours to machine quilt.  I had planned to give it away but so far, I haven’t and I don’t think I am going to.  When you look at the quilt at a distance, it looks like I fussy cut a black fabric for the snowballs…but I didn’t.  It’s just plain black fabric with LOTS of thread on it!

It’s amazing how a simple block, like the snowball block, can be “dressed up” with some creative stitching.  When I do another, I am going to make a design in the center that isn’t directional…that’s the thing that I did wrong….but it’s all a learning process.  

This design has a great potential as a baby quilt….white background and a pastel variegated thread….I best quit writing or I am going to have another quilt project going….there’s four in the make right now!