Hexi Snowmen

October's Island Batik Ambassador challenge is "Top It Off," a seasonal table runner or table topper.  My family doesn't really decorate the table but we do hang seasonal small quilts on the front door.  I've been wanting a winter quilt and a Thanksgiving quilt, so I picked out a pattern for each and asked my son (age 6) which I should make.  His reply?  "Both!"  Well, eventually, yes, but which one first?

Snowmen!  The pattern is a tutorial by fellow Island Batik Ambassador Vicki of Vicki's Craft's & Quilting and can be found here.  Though I will use it on the door, I took a few pictures of it on my kitchen table so you can see it makes a lovely table topper. The blues in the quilt even match my dishes!

The center background fabric is Dot in Sky and the outer fabric is Dot in French Blue, both from the blenders collection.   The red is leftover from my Quilt of Valor made from the Freedom line.  The snowflake in the middle is Bluebird from the basics collection.  The orange noses came from one of my stash builder strips and both the white of the snowmen heads and the black for the eyes are Island Batik's solids.  I absolutely love how the dot fabrics look like falling snow!  Perfect for this project!

I made a few changes to Vicki's original design.  She uses three smaller snowflakes scattered around.  I wanted a bigger snowflake and I liked the idea of something in the center.  I used a snowflake from the Winter Wonderland pattern by Henry Glass & Co and enlarged it to get size I wanted. (There were three different snowflakes in that pattern and I let my son pick which one to use.)  She also uses buttons for the eyes and I wasn't sure I had 6 buttons that would work.  My accuquilt train die has two different sized circles and I used the smaller of the two.  I love using those circles as cheater eyes because I have a terrible time cutting out smooth circles.

I started to do the blanket stitch around the snowmen with white thread but decided it needed a little contrast, so I took it out and started again with Aurifil 2710, a lovely light blue.  I quilted a spiral with 1" intervals using the same thread and I think it looks a bit like snow swirling around.  The batting is Hobbs Bleached 80/20.  I used Flexifuse for the snowflake.  This was my first time using Flexifuse and it is thinner and less stiff than other fusibles I've used.  This was also my first time binding a quilt with angles that were not 90 degrees.  I found a youtube video that walked me through the process.

The materials used in this quilt were provided to me by Island Batik., Accuquilt, Aurifil, and Hobbs.

I'm really pleased with this fun little quilt!  It's rare for us to get snow before January here but I look forward to hanging this on the door the second a whisper of snow is in the forecast.  And in the meantime, I can keep it on the table, as the challenge intended.