“Let it snow… let it snow… let it snow!”

Winter has come early to many places, and along with it record snowfalls and biting cold. We were pleased to find a different kind of snow – in flake form – that is much easier to handle and could actually be a welcome addition to your holiday preparations!

Back in October we visited with Tim Latimer and explored his prolific skills as a hand quilter. Guess what Tim does when his quilting hand needs a break? He creates the most beautiful snowflakes, mostly in paper but recently a spectacular snowflake in a cotton wholecloth quilt.

Tim noticed visits to his blog increased substantially whenever he posted one of his snowflake creations. He decided to take one of the designs, enlarge it to make a stencil, and embarked on making a 41-inch square snowflake quilt. Those who follow Tim’s quilting on his blog have been fortunate to see the quilt’s progress in greater detail, but we include a few illustrations here:

It starts with a stencil

Blue markup for the quilt

Work in progress

Tim used a 40-weight Precencia brand thread in an icy royal blue to add to the frosty tone of the quilt. The finished creation has resulted in Tim’s decision to create a pattern and make it available to fellow quilting and snowflake aficionados.

Semi-finished Snowflake quilt

He hopes to have it finished soon, but until then, try making this free snowflake from Tim. Better yet, for the price of a fancy cup of coffee, visit his Etsy shop and download his booklet of 9 snowflake patterns, along with step-by-step paper folding instructions and helpful guidance on how to create these masterful snowflakes.

Maybe next year we’ll have a wholecloth snowflake quilt show, but until then send us a picture of your finished paper snowflakes to us and we’ll share them on our Facebook page!

Photos courtesy Tim Latimer.