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Making a Snowman Quilt for Kids

This charming quilt tells a simple winter-time story using embroidered patterns. It will be loved by boys and girls alike, and makes an excellent Christmas or New Year's gift. It features designs from the Making a Snowman and Snowmen Redwork Set.

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The finished size of the quilt is about 50" x 63".
The basic block is very simple: a large plain square framed by strips made of two-color squares. We used "Thangles" 2.0 templates to make the two-color squares.

We used about 1 1/2" yard of white fabric for the blocks and sashing, 1 yard of pale blue fabric for the blocks and sashing, 1 yard of medium blue fabric for the blocks and the first border and 1 1/2 yard of dark blue fabric for the blocks and the second border.

You will also need batting, and fabric for the backing and binding.

Cutting:

All measuremesnts are based on 40" wide fabrics.

Out of white fabric, cut
twelve 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" squares (blocks);
thirty one 1 1/2" x 12 1/2" strips (sashing).
.
Out of pale blue fabric, cut
fourteen 1 1/2" x 12 1/2" strips (sashing);
twenty four 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" squares (sashing);
and forty 2 1/2" x 10 1/2" strips (blocks).

Out of medium blue fabric, cut
twenty 2 1/2" x 10 1/2" strips (blocks)
eighteen 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" squares (sashing)
six strips 2 1/2" x 40" (1st border) - stitch them together and subcut into 2 strips 2 1/2" x 46" and two strips 2 1/2" x 54".

Out of dark blue fabric, cut
twenty 2 1/2" x 10 1/2" strips (blocks)
fourteen strips 2 1/2" x 40" (2nd border and binding). Stitch seven strips together and subcut them into 2 strips 2 1/2" x 46" and 2 strips 2 1/2"x 63". Stitch the other seven strips together for the binding.

Block Assembly:

Seam allowances are 1/4".

Following the directions given in the Thangles intructions, make ten 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" squares out of the pale blue and medium blue strips and ten squares out of the pale blue and dark blue strips. If you do not have Thangles, these squares are not hard to make without them, as you can see from the picture below. For the entire quilt, you will need 120 dark and pale blue squares, and 120 medium and pale blue squares.

Working with one block at a time, lay the two-color squares out around the white square. You can make all the blocks indentical or give each one slight variations, depending on how you position the squares. Make 12 blocks.

Top Assembly:

Arrange the blocks in rows, placing a white sashing strip between the blocks. Sew white and pale blue strips at the ends of the row.

Assemble the sashing to go between the rows. Make five sashing strips using the white strips and pale blue and medium blue squares:

Sew two more sashing strips using the pale blue strips and medium blue and pale blue squares.

Join all the rows and sashing strips:

Attach the first border. First attach the left and the right medium blue border strips, then attach the upper and lower medium blue border strips.

Attach the second border. First attach the upper and the lower dark blue border strips, then attach the left and right dark blue border strips.

Now the top is ready for embroidery. We chose redwork designs from the Christmas Redwork section. For embroidery on quilts, we like to use low-loft DreamPoly batting, instead of stabilizer. After each design is embroidered, we cut away the excess stabilizer as close to the stitches as possible. This technique will make the embroidery puffy and you will get trapunto-like results.

Finishing the Quilt:

Now place the backing on a flat surface (table) face down. Cover with batting. Spread the top over it.

Pin all three layers together with 1" pins and start quilting. We quilted along the lines of the embroidery to fix it in place, meandered around the embroidery and free-motioned the sashing and the borders.

After the quilting is finished, press the work with heavy steam and square the work -- all corners should be 90 degrees and opposite sides should be of the same length.

Finish the raw edges with binding, using your favourite method.

Here are some close-ups: