Snowflake Shimmer Quilt Along {Finishing Details}

Welcome back to the Snowflake Shimmer Quilt Along! This is the final week of instructions!

I timed myself as I went through the quilt making process, and finishing the quilt (backing prep, quilting, and binding) took me just over 11 hours. I know we all work at different paces (especially when it comes to quilting), but I thought that I would try to give you some kind of expectation of the work involved for each step of this process.

Snowflake Shimmer Quilt Finishing

Step 1

Trim the selvage edges from the backing fabric. Cut the fabric length in half and sew it together along the long edge, creating a large rectangle. Press the seam open.

Step 2

Make the quilt sandwich by placing the backing wrong side up, followed by the batting, and then the quilt top, right side up. Baste.

Step 3

Quilt as desired. I quilted my gray Snowflake Shimmer quilt with columns of a large single loop motif in the negative space.  I wanted the large loops to invoke a sense of a light, lazy, drifting winter snowfall. I stitched in the ditch around the key elements I wanted to emphasize: the on point squares (the centers of the square in a square blocks) and the secondary design (Sawtooth stars). Within the Sawtooth stars I echo quilted the outline of the star offset every ¼ʺ for a total of 4 echo lines. Within each on point square I quilted a snowflake shape using a snowflake template (click link to open and download the template). I will have a short video tutorial on Saturday, September 10^th, showing how I continuously quilted the shape.

Snowflake Shimmer – Quilting Detail on Quilt Back

Step 4

Join the 2 ½ x WOF binding strips with diagonal seams to create a straight-grain binding strip. Fold the strip in half lengthwise and bind the quilt using the double-fold binding method you prefer.

Snowflake Shimmer

Congratulations! You have completed a Snowflake Shimmer Quilt! 

Tips and Tricks

At 72 x 88, the Snowflake Shimmer is a large quilt to work with. This week I wanted to provide a few links to different basting tutorials that might help you decide how to work with finishing your version.

1. Christa @Christa Quilts: How to Spray Baste a Quilt
2. Christa @Christa Quilts for BERNINA’s We All Sew Blog: Wall Basting Tutorial
3. Amelie Scott: How to Sandwich a Large Quilt on a Small Table (YouTube Video Tutorial)

Because finishing the quilt takes longer, there will be a longer period of time before the final linkup opens, and the final linkup will be open for 2 weeks from September 23rd through October 7th.

Snowflake Shimmer Quilt Along Schedule

Friday, July 1st – Snowflake Shimmer Quilt Along Opens (Fabric Selection)
Friday, July 22nd – Snowflake Shimmer QAL Linkup #1
Friday, July 29th – Snowflake Shimmer QAL (Fabric Preparation Post)
Friday, August 5th – Snowflake Shimmer QAL Linkup #2
Friday August 12th – Snowflake Shimmer QAL (Piecing Instructions #1)
Friday August 19th – Snowflake Shimmer QAL Linkup #3
Friday August 26th – Snowflake Shimmer QAL (Piecing Instructions #2)
Friday September 2nd – Snowflake Simmer QAL Linkup #4
Friday September 9th – Snowflake Shimmer QAL (Finishing Details) <– You Are Here
Friday September 23rd – Snowflake Shimmer QAL Linkup #5 (Final Linkup for Finished Quilts)