More Christmas In July: Sharon's Flannel Snowflake Quilt + Jingle Progress

Since my last post was all about boring invisible ditch quilting, I feel like I invited you all to a parade to see the Emperor's (imaginary) New Clothes!  So today I am sharing another Christmas quilt, but with this quilt you can actually see the quilting.  I quilted this one a few months ago and I've been waiting for July to share it with you.

My mom pieced this quilt using the Snowflake pattern from Modern Handcraft and a kit of flannel fabrics from Keepsake Quilting.  She chose Minky dot fabric for the backing, and the finished quilt is soft, snuggly, and weighty -- perfect for curling up with a good book or a Hallmark Christmas movie in the month of December.

Sharon's 60 x 72 Flannel Snowflake Quilt

This is only my mom's second quilt ever -- didn't she do a great job?  We went with Quilters Dream 80/20 batting and Glide thread in White.  The edge-to-edge quilting design is called Snowflake E2E 2 and it took forever to stitch out.  

I have several other digital snowflake designs that are faster stitching, but I felt that this one was the best complement to the angular style of the patchwork snowflake and the snowflakes in some of the fabric prints.  And I love that there is such a great variety of different snowflakes in this panto instead of the same one or two snowflakes over and over again.  

Same Quilt, Minky Backing Side

The quilted snowflakes look like they are embossed into the Minky pile on the back side of the quilt.  Here's what Mom's quilt top looked like before quilting:

Sharon's Flannel Snowflake Top, Before Quilting

As a new quilter, my mom followed the pattern instructions exactly -- and this pattern instructs you to press all of the seams open rather than pressing all of the seams to the left in the odd rows and all seams to the right in the even rows, as I would have done as a reckless Disregarder of Instructions.  With the seams pressed in opposite directions, those intersections would have locked together nice and tight, greatly facilitating assembly of the quilt top.  Mom reported some frustration and seam ripping in trying to get her seams to line up with the seam allowances all pressed open.  I wish I'd read the pattern instructions so I would have known to warn her.  Why are so many pattern designers telling people to press their seams open these days?  It makes it so, SO much harder than it needs to be, and I don't really see any clear advantages to doing it that way for 90% of the patterns.

Mom's 60 x 72 Snowflake Quilt After Quilting

Looking at the end result, I would never have known she struggled because in the end those seams match up pretty close to perfect.

Meanwhile, Back At the Ranch...

I'm still plodding my way slowly through the SID work on my Jingle quilt:

S-L-O-W-L-Y Stitching Around Applique With Invisible Thread

Can you see the difference between the appliqué I've already stitched around (the top two pomegranates and the top left tulip, plus stems and leaves in that area) versus the flatter looking applique that still needs to be stitched around?  SID around applique is unbelievably time consuming, all carefully hand guided at slow speed through all those nooks and crannies, but it gives so much life and dimension to the appliqué shapes, especially with double batting like I'm using for this quilt.  My final step will be to go back with an off white thread and quilt background designs that compress the fabric around the appliqué so it stands out even more, like trapunto.  But that's a LONG way away.  My Tuesday To-Do List goal is just to keep working steadily on this quilt throughout the rest of the week.  What are YOU working on this week?  I'm linking up with my favorite linky parties, listed on the left sidebar of my blog.