Charming Snowmen

Yesterday I gave you a sneak peak of my newest Sewing for the Seasons project which I'm calling Charming Snowmen. I used to be a swap addict and these charms are from yet another swap on the HGTV Quilting Forum - 6.5" snow themed squares. It is always amazing to open a swap package and see the variety. I really love fabrics... vintage, modern and anything in between!

I'm following this pattern - Bill's Cozy Quilt from a Leisure Arts book called "Quick & Scrappy Quilts" - except I'm not using flannels and mine will be super scrappy.

Since the charms are laid out in 8 columns of 6 I started out by sorting my charms into 6 groups: green, mixed/large scale, not snowmen, country red, bright red and blue.  Then I filled in each group until I had 8 charms in each pile.

Next they went up on my design wall to "simmer" for about 24 hours while I looked them over from time to time and made some adjustments.

Now I'm adding sashing strips of this cream snowflake fabric to calm them down a little. I haven't decided if I'm going to use scrappy cornerstones or one fabric... I think I have a few snowflake fabrics in my stash. I'm thinking a blue border at this point to keep it looking more like winter than Christmas.

I've gradually shifted in an unplanned way to doing my piecing on Mr. Juki (TL2010Q) so yesterday I pulled the scrap batting and other things that Julia (Juki F600) had accumulated over her cover and was shocked to find that her walking foot was attached. This means I last used her when I quilted the borders on Scrappy Snowball using her serpentine stitch the 1st week of October - way longer ago than I thought! Poor neglected Julia. :-(

Next week when I get Mr. Juki set up for quilting it will feel decadent all over again to be able to take a break and do some piecing on Julia. I have had both of these machines for almost a year now and I could not not be happier. It has been so much fun connecting with other Juki lovers and providing information to/enabling new buyers.