January Snowmen and Snowflakes Completed

The assembly and piecing for this wall hanging is described in my post for 1/31/26. This post is about the quilting and finishing. Like a fine wine, a quilt needs to age before its destined FMQ pattern reveals itself. For this banner the snowflake blocks were immediately obvious to me. I quilted the snowflakes first with radiating parallel diagonal channels. Later I went back and stitched cross bars across the spokes of the snowflake where the color changed between light and dark in the Nordic stripe. The snowman blocks were harder for me to decide.

Not wanting to interfere with the background print on the snowman, at first, I did simple loops like a lower case script e, think the pattern would complement the writing. But my loops were uneven, looked sloppy, and did not give the effect I wanted. I stopped after two rows and picked out the mess. I then quilted the background behind the snowmen with scallops using my Handiquilter ruler to represent hills of snow, like the moguls on a ski slope. I added rows of snowflakes on his collar and hat. I straight-stitched around the nose, mouth, and eyes to provide some anchoring points, but left the rest of the face non-quilted.

The outside navy snowflake border gave me the most trouble deciding what to do. I tried a fairly open meander, tracing a path around the snowflakes. I sewed about 6" and did not like it. I fooled myself into thinking maybe it would look better when I did more. I meandered around all four sides in a loose path tracing around the snowflakes. Compared to my other neat, controlled FMQ selections, it looked far beyond the euphemism "organic"; it was simply untidy, messy, and ugly. I actually spent over three hours painstakingly picking out all those stitches in that border. I used the 3" half circle of my clamshell ruler to add more precise stitching in the borders and was much happier with the results. I filled in the four corners with ordinary circles. I call them the snowballs in keeping with the January theme. 

The backing fabric is a darker colorway of the background fabric on the snowmen. I find the deep navy version more striking and the words easier to read. The cursive carefree writing is quite jolly with phrases such as "Winter wonderland", "frozen flurries", "Magical moments Together", "Snowflakes", "sledding", and "hot cocoa". 

One label on a back corner reflects my initials DIC and the year of completion as 2026. The month January is for the theme of the wall hanging and not specifically the month I finished it. The other label on the opposite back corner reflects the descriptive, although not very imaginative, name of the quilt as Snowmen and Snowflakes. Up at the top is a narrow hanging sleeve for a wire quilt display hanger I bought to rotate for use with each of the twelve banners.

Here is the completed Snowmen and Snowflakes, hung up on the wall beside the entrance to my sewing room. This chosen spot is not as visible to house visitors, but it gives me a little pang of pleasure to see it daily. It is low enough to swap out monthly. This is my fourth banner completed in this Shabby Fabric series. Each finishes 31" x 31". So far I have completed Roses and Pansies for May (9/11/25), Strawberries for June (9/6/25), and Bees and Sunflowers for August (9/21/25). Bunnies and Carrots for April is pieced but not yet quilted.

January Snowmen and Snowflakes

The January Pieceful Patchwork banner kit from Shabby Fabrics featured two jaunty snowmen who sport top hats with coal eyes and a carrot nose along with two snowflakes that are simpler to assembly than their intricate demeanor would imply. For some inexplicable reason, I have a soft spot for fabrics with words, so I am pleased with the snowmen background. When I cut out the fabric from this kit, I paid little attention to fabric print details. When I pieced the snowmen, I did make sure the writing faced the same direction, but I did not fussy cut anything in particular. 

I used my Melamine Trays, Alphabitties and Clover Wonder Clips to organize the cut pieces for the snowmen and snowflakes.

Adding the carrot and coal facial features was very easy. They were pre-cut by a laser and had a pre-fused backing. They punched out easily from the sheet they were on. After using a light box to help establish the positioning, I ironed on the features seamlessly. Per the advice on the instructional video, I waited to add appliqué stitching on the carrot nose and on the coal eyes and mouth until after the surrounding background pieces had been added. Waiting avoided the chance that the appliqué could distort the face piece. I was careful to use a narrow satin stitch width and a not too-too small stitch length and both faces remained smooth and did not pucker.

After assembling the snowflakes I did note that the nordic stripe print happened to fall centered in some spokes and not centered in others. Had I noticed this earlier I would have fussy cut that print. The kits from Shabby Fabrics are generous in their fabrics, allowing for occasional mistakes, so there was sufficient fabric to have fussy cut. I just did not notice until the snowflakes were assembled. Here the two snowflakes are side by side. The one on the left has centered stars on the horizontal spokes and on the lower vertical spoke, but the upper vertical spoke has non-centered stars. The reverse is true of the snowflake on the right, centered on only one spoke and non-centered on the other three spokes. It occurred to me I could switch the two top halves and have each snowflake be self-consistent.

I unstitched the two top halves and interchanged them; here are the two revised snowflakes. Each is axisymmetric unto itself but they are different from each other. Anyway, isn't it theorized that no two snowflakes are exactly alike?

Here is the January banner assembled and sandwiched with sashing and borders. Next up is the FMQ. I had inspiration for the snowflakes but I am still contemplating FMQ on the snowmen.