Skip to main content

Snowmobile barn quilt block

 

by Linda Theil

Alisa gave me Girardelli chocolates and pre-cut fabric as tiny gifts in my 2024 Advent calendar celebrating each December day leading up to the holiday celebration.

By Christmas I had an entire "jelly-roll" of 2.5-inch-wide strips of fabric from the "Holiday Flourish-Festive Finery" collection from Robert Kaufmann fabrics. I pulled some background and a blender from my stash and started researching block options so that I would be ready to sew once holiday festivities were over.

One of the options I explored is a beautiful book, I Love House Blocks: 14 Quilts from an All-time Favorite Block, published by Martingale & Co. in 2017. A house block with a shed-like addition called "Little Country Home" caught my eye. The layout was adaptable to my 2.5-inch-wide strips, so I made a sample block as proof of concept.

The block has a barn-like quality that I liked, so in  honor of my snowmobile-builder son, I decided to put a snowmobile in the barn. 

  • I searched the Internet for a snowmobile icon that might be adaptable for my use.
  • When I found a suitable design, I sized the image in Pagemaker and printed out several sizes to use as patterns for my applique.
  • I backed a dark fabric from my scrap basket with Heat n Bond brand. iron-on adhesive.
  • I clipped my pattern on top of my adhesive-backed fabric, and cut out the applique with a small, sharp pair of scissors.
  • Then, I used an iron to fuse the snowmobile applique to my pieced barn. 


It occurs to me that you could add any selection of personal icons, holiday icons, or other images to each barn block to create a themed quilt.

After adding pieces of background to border the entire barn block, I prepared my pieced block with batting and iron-on interfacing as a backing, and used my walking foot to closely quilt the entire block. I did not stitch the small applique around its outline, but attached it with only the close lines of stitching used to quilt the block. Then I spray glued a stiff backing to the quilted block and zig-zag stitched around all four sides of the block to make a vignette suitable for display.


I don't know if I will use this block to make an entire quilt with the Robert Kaufmann holiday fabric unless I figure out a way to incorporate more of the printed strips into the quilt, but I really enjoyed playing with this elegant little block and will probably continue to experiment with it.
Diagram of block as sewn for this project


Comments

Cathy said…
You make me smile! Once again, you are so amazing---who else would have thought to do that!! What a treasure for Paul!
1/02/2025
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scrappy log cabin blocks

by Linda Theil Scrappy Log Cabin quilt block by Linda Theil  Next month the Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild will host a virtual quilt-along to make quilts for the SafeHouse Center womens' shelter in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One of the suggested blocks to make at the event is a Scrappy Log Cabin suggested by GAAQG member and artist Mary Bajcz. I love the Log Cabin block design and decided to get a head start on next month's event by organizing my materials and develping a process for making my Scrappy Log Cabin blocks. I began by watching Mary's YouTube video: "Scrap Quilt Strategy: The Log Cabin Technique" , and many others available on the topic. What a variety of approaches!   I'm not much of an improvisor and this is the first time I've tried the scrappy approach to quilt making. So It was quite an adventure for me. I pulled out my scrap bin and began sorting for lights and darks. After looking at many videos, I decided to work with a central square of 2.5-i...
1 comment
Read more

Diane's Archie

by Linda Theil Diane Spencer-Ogg, owner of Spencer-Ogg, Ltd. in Greater Manchester, UK, released a new mini-duffle pattern she calls "Arch Zipper Pouches" in two sizes with printable pattern pieces and video tuturial. Her video introduction can be viewed at the end of this post. As always, Spencer-Ogg has hit the ball out of the park with the elegance of her design and the precision of her process. I have made two of the 10x8x4-inch large-sized Archies -- as her  fans have dubbed the new pattern. The bag shown above is made of Mora Faux Leather in grape from Emmaline Bags of Alberta, Canada. The interior, shown below, is cotton from the "Art History" collection by Marcia Derse for Windham Fabrics. For my second Archie, I quilted a panel from the "Guess How Much I Love You" collection by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram for Clothworks. With this new design, Spencer-Ogg debuts an updated pattern-production method that provides printable pattern pieces and a c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sterling goodie-bags

Cathy and Carla on the beach at Sterling State Park, Monroe MI, May 2024 by Linda Theil Several years ago, Alisa discovered the full-amenity cottages on the beach at Sterling State Park in Monroe, Michigan; and we have enjoyed several family vacations there. Two years ago, I invited my cousins to spend a long spring weekend at Sterling, We enjoyed it so much we went again last year, and plan a trip for this year, too. I wanted to make a commenorative goodie-bag for this years trip so I chose a photo from last year and developed a color scheme for a tiny duffle and matching mini-backpack. The duffle is made from the Spencer-Ogg "Arch Zipper Pouch"   in the medium size -- 9 x 6 x 3-inches; and the mini-backpack is the "Bitty Bug Pack" pattern by Carolina Little Stitches. Both bags are made with Tilda "Chambray Dots" and faux waxed-canvas from Sally Tomato . For the feature panel on the front of the mini-backpack, I resized the  Sterling beach photo with my...
Post a Comment
Read more