Flowering Snowball

Flowering Snowball Finished
Flowering Snowball Finished

Materials:

  • 100% cotton fabric
  • 100% cotton thread

Techniques

  • Hand pieced blocks
  • Machine Pieced
  • Longarm quilted

Details:

  • Year: 2006-2012
  • Size:

Quilted By:

  • Colleen Granger

Story

This quilt was in process for about 6 years. I saw a quilt with this pattern at a museum tour somewhere in the East Bay. I started it in about 2006 to have some hand work to do in the evenings.

The original quilt was predominantly blue and not as scrappy as I would have liked, but provided some excellent inspiration for my imagination. Since I didn’t know what the pattern was called and didn’t really care that much, I called it Cross Blocks. Then the historian in me kicked in and I began researching the history of the block. Eventually I got help identifying the block name and provenance from AQSG members. I found that Barbara Brackman had cataloged it. In EQ7, the notecard lists it as “Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Quilt Patterns  #3081 – Aunt Kate 7/65.” It is from the Classic Pieced, Orange Peel family.

In 2011, I started working on works in progress in order to clear out my fabric closet as well as the end of the year WIP report. The Flowering Snowball came to the top of the list and I worked on it steadily during 2012.

I thought of trimming these blocks down to a uniform size because they didn’t have a uniform seam allowance. After finishing all the side/border blocks, I tried sewing them together as they were and found that they went together quite well.

I wrote up a tutorial on making these blocks.