Minnesota Winter Wonderland Quilt Along!!!

Minnesota Winter Wonderland QAL!

  I thought it would be fun to do a little QAL this year. Don't get it confused with the BOM I'm doing. That's a whole other quilt. You can follow along with both and have two quilts done by the end of the year! When deciding what quilt to use for a QAL, Minnesota Winter Wonderland came to mind first. It's one of my favorite winter themed quilts. Many of you know, I live in Minnesota and it's winter here nine months out of the year, and Belvedere and I have decided to hibernate this winter and just hang out together in the studio as I sew. I also know that many of you are experiencing colder than usual weather too! Even in Florida!  So the first section we are going to do is a row of 'Chilly Silly Snowmen' which is the January section of the Minnesota Winter Wonderland pattern..... These snowmen are so stinkin cute, and easy to sew together. Everything is based on 2 1/2" squares and strips. The snowman noses are appliqued, but don't worry, if you are a beginner to applique, you can do these. The complete pattern can be found Etsy and also on Quilt Doodle Website. It's available as a PDF instant download and also as a packaged pattern. It's written so it can be done as a BOM. So it'll be easy to follow along month to month. So lets get started.... You will need the following fabric colors... blue (I'm using a darker blue fabric), cream/white, and orange (for the snowman noses). You will also need some Heat n Bond and brown or black thread for machine applique. I like to use dark brown.

Many of you have wondered what fabrics.... here's what I pulled
from my fabric stash. Notice most of it is tone on tone. You can have a lot of fun with this quilt and experiment with many shades of blue and make it very scrappy. I've seen this quilt done scrappy and it turns out super cute!!!

Following the pattern directions, I cut 2 1/2" squares
and 2 1/2" x 10 1/2" strips.

Layer a cream/white 2 1/2" square and a blue 2 1/2" square
right sides together and sew corner to corner. Repeat until you have
7 sets of 4.

Trim the excess leaving a 1/4" seam...

Iron, seam to the dark side....

Lay out your squares to form the snowman block.

Sew block together using a scant 1/4" seam.

Here is a snowman block next to the 2 1/2" x 10 1/2" strip...

Sew a strip to each section..

Sew the sections together making sure the long snowman
strip begins and ends with a 2 1/2" x 10 1/2" strip.

Trace 7 snowman noses onto the heat n bond and then
iron onto the wrong side of the orange fabric.
Cut the noses out

Your snowman noses can go all the same way...

Or willy nilly ~ every direction... iron them on.

I applique around the nose using my machines button hole stitch
using brown thread.

 Snowman eyes.... hmmmmm...
you can sew on buttons, beads or embroider them using french knots.
It's up to you and what you prefer to do.

I think I'm going to use buttons...

Chilly Silly Snowmen ~ January's Block

 If you blog about it this QAL, please email me a link so that I can attach it to the Pinterest Board I have going for the Minnesota Winter Wonderland QAL. I hope you have fun with this section of the quilt. It can easily be done in a weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's snowmen! We will work on the next section of the quilt on February 10th. Hope that you join in on the fun!!!

Happy Quilting,

Cindy and Belvedere

PDF Copy Available to Purchase Here