July is a great time to start planning sewing projects for Christmas. You know, avoid the November rush, do things in a relaxed and enjoyable way, plan the presents ahead of time……. yeah…. sounds great doesn’t it? But come November, I’ll be saying “it can’t be so close to Christmas already!”.

I’m currently in the middle of winter because I’m in Australia and our Christmas is of course, in summer. But given the cold (ok, it’s not that cold where I live: we think 10 C (that’s about 50 F) is cold, however, I know that’s springlike and balmy for those who live in the frozen north). Anyway, given the cold, my thoughts have turned to snowflakes which are really pretty even if we don’t get them here. A few years ago I had a lot of fun looking at snowflakes as they actually appear through microscope photography. The ice crystals form beautiful symmetry, some 6 branching, some 12 branching. I particularly like that the crystals form hexagonal shapes which lends itself to English paper piecing.

I played with a lot of snowflakes on Electric Quilt. It was a big job to draw them, but very satisfying. I just kept doing another one, and another, ‘til I had 25. Then I cut snowflakes on my Brother Scan’n’cut. This was a lot of fun, but also a bit scary because they are very detailed. It was so awesome when they came out so neatly. I then had snowflakes and I also had the negative space with the snowflakes cut out. Awesome! Two for the price of one. I’ve kept the paper from the fusible web as well, I’m going to laminate each piece and I’ll have snowflakes for the window. I also thought of using the cutouts as stencils…. A can of spray and some brown paper…. instant gift wrap.

Some I ironed onto organza to make a food cover for the table, so the snowflakes just floated on the surface. Then I made some bunting, grey and silver and white, perfect for storm clouds on a dark day.

Then I started playing with the negative space …. I started thinking about the colours of Christmas for me. Christmas is in the height of summer: the sea is blue, the mangoes are ripe, the jacaranda is out, the peaches, cherries and apricots are in season, the summer holidays are starting, the houses are decorated with multicoloured lights, santas and a few random plastic blow up snowmen (weird, right), and it’s Christmas. So, I made a table runner with our Christmas colours of blue for the sea, red for the cherries, yellow for the mangoes and purple for the jacaranda, and used the backgrounds of the snowflakes just for fun (and because I didn’t want to waste all that beautiful cutting).

I also did the same thing on dark blue for snowflakes on the night sky. It didn’t seem to matter what I did, the snowflakes looked awesome. Then I tried some things: I tried quilting them (not so awesome but that was probably me, I’m going to print them out bigger and try again) and stencilling them ( the stencilling worked fine but silver paint on white was a bit too subtle for me and I decided I needed different paint).

Reverse snowflakes with free motion quilting

Stencilled snowflakes (using freezer paper stencils). The silver on white worked ok but is a bit subtle for me.

For the Christmas in July bloghop, run by ‘My Carolina Home’ I’ve put four of the snowflakes together on a table runner. Once the snowflakes are cut, the piecing is not complex and the effect is really pretty. The four snowflakes was a free download for July 2020. If you would like all 25 snowflakes and patterns for bunting, table runners and hexagons, this is also in my pattern store. I do hope you have a lot of fun with these. Please leave me comments and pictures. I’d love to see what you have done.

If you check my patterns for sale you will also find current free patterns.

Now, do check out all the other fantastic blogs and the patterns. They are looking really magical.

Table Toppers, Home and Kitchen
Inquiring Quilter
Duck Creek Mountain Quilting
Cooking Up Quilts
The Quilted Diary
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Morning Glory Designs
Scrapdash
Days Filled With Joy

Small Projects
Geeky Bobbin
Sunburnt Quilts
Tamarinis
Tuning My Heart Quilts
Prairie Sewn Studios
Puppy Girl Designs
Ladybug Buzz
Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio

Traditional and Modern Quilt Patterns
Ms P Designs USA
Quilt 2 End ALZ
Patti's Patchwork
Cotton Street Commons
Brown Bird Designs
From My Carolina Home