Winter Blues

I absolutely love this pattern – I’ve seen so many different takes on it and the pattern itself comes written with several different options.

I knew that I wanted to do something that incorporated the “cold” winter vibe – blues, white, silver, snowflakes. I’m also a sucker for fun, novelty prints and like to be a little “untraditionally” traditional at times.

I chose a variety of blue, navy, and teal for all the background pieces, and arranged them in no particular order, just tried to maintain some balance so I didn’t end up with any big patches of similar colors.

For the snowflake, I knew I wanted it to be reflective of the snow – imperfect with variety, of silvers, whites, grays, some with a little sparkle made up the choice fabrics for that.

What really brought it together for me was finding the perfect backing piece, which is a blue flannel with the most adorable penguins. Flannel is probably my top pick for backing – its cozy, it’s not too difficult to stitch, and often comes in the most adorable colors and themes.

I also did some free motion quilting on this one – I found a pantograph I really liked, but since my longarm is tabletop and that’s a bit of a challenge. I took the main piece I loved (a penguin), enlarged it and then improvised with swirls and hand-drawn snowflakes.