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9-Patch and Snowball Quilt

Posted on July 25, 2009October 26, 2014 by Martha

This was the first quilt I made from vintage fabric. The prints are more 40’s and 50’s so the colors are brighter than some of my other quilts. It’s entirely hand pieced, which is unusual for this pattern since it’s an easy pattern to sew on the machine. When I began to seriously quilt again about 8 years ago, I wanted to hand piece everything. When it came time for the quilting, I did a couple of rows and decided I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the piecing. I thought about the church ladies in Ohio who had finished the quilting on my first quilt, Morning Glory in the 70’s (and several quilts for my mother and mother-in-law), and decided to contact them. Mrs. H responded that her group was still quilting and they would be pleased to finish my quilt. I packed up the quilt and mailed it the next day. About a month later I got it back and was so excited to take a look.

Well, friends, you would not have believed what I found. The poor church ladies must have been really old by then because the quilt was a complete mess — the stitches looked like a child had done them, there were really dark pencil lines from tracing the flower template, and the muslin back was covered with little blood stains. I was devastated! After I recovered from the shock, I started the process of taking out all of their quilting and doing it over — one block at a time. Here’s what I used: seam ripper, tweezers, a little cup of diluted Oxyclean, Q-tip, and hairdryer — it took about 6 months to complete. The good thing that happened was that I began to enjoy hand quilting, which is now my favorite part of the quilt-making process.

Mrs. H and her friends were paid, and I never told them that I was unhappy with the result. They had done such beautiful work when they were younger, and it was sad that their vision had obviously deteriorated.

I discovered after this quilt was done that one of my pieced blocks and two of the quilted flowers are turned the wrong direction. I couldn’t really fix the pieced block, but I didn’t change the flowers either which is kind of strange since I’m usually sort of a perfectionist about this type of thing. For some reason, it just doesn’t bother me at all.

9-Patch and Snowball
Martha Dellasega Gray, 2001
hand pieced, hand quilted
70″ x 80″

9patch-snowball1

9patch-snowball2

9patch-snowball3

9patch-snowball4

18 thoughts on “9-Patch and Snowball Quilt”

  1. Ann Champion says:
    July 25, 2009 at 3:39 pm

    Oh my! I think I just drooled a little? 😉 Your quilt is gorgeous! Such a wonderful mix of fabrics there. It’s such a shame that the quilting you had done wasn’t right. You sure made lemonaid from those lemons though, ..because the quilting is wonderful now! Good for you..for not giving up..and learning to love the quilting. 🙂

    Reply
  2. jan says:
    July 25, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    Martha, this is a beautiful quilt! You are so good with colors – at first glance it looks scrappy, but on closer look, the combinations are perfect!

    Reply
  3. Ann says:
    July 25, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    That is an awesome quilt! The fabrics are SOOO pretty! I used to be drawn to browns, but I’ve morphed into a light, bright and cheery lover. It fills that bill to perfection! The beginning and end of its story are beautiful. I’m sorry it had a rocky middle. You must be VERY patient!

    When you piece and quilt, do you measure your progress in any way or do you just let it happen. I’ve tried setting goals to completion, but they don’t work for me. It could be that my goals when I DO set them are unrealistic so I’m better off when I don’t. Just curious about what works for you…

    Reply
  4. barbara says:
    July 26, 2009 at 10:27 am

    So beautiful, and I have no idea what’s turned the wrong way – it looks just perfect to me. I was so surprised that the church ladies got your quilt back to you so quickly – any groups I know of like that have waiting lists for the waiting list – but then I read on. That’s kind of sad. All’s well that ends well, though, and your quilt is lovely.

    Reply
  5. Holly says:
    July 26, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    So lovely! Nobody but the maker of the quilt would see that something was quilted in a different direction…that is the beauty of a hand-made item. You get to know the piece better than anybody else will ever be able to!

    Do you have some kind of color pattern in mind when you are putting your quilts together? It all flows so beautifully! I love to think that it happens by chance, but have a sinking feeling that it may involve a skill that I have yet to develop.

    Reply
  6. Rita says:
    July 27, 2009 at 5:10 pm

    This quilt is amazing, well worth all that extra effort you went through to get it to look just like this. What incredible perseverance! Love the end result, a truly inspiring quilt.

    Reply
  7. Jennifer says:
    July 29, 2010 at 5:03 pm

    So beautiful!! The fabrics made my jaw drop. And here’s to happy accidents!

    Reply
  8. Mindy/Minka says:
    July 31, 2010 at 1:57 pm

    What a great story! I hope I can learn to hand quilt — and enjoy it too!

    Reply
  9. Kate says:
    August 27, 2010 at 12:51 am

    Hi, I’m about to embark on a snowball quilt but I don’t think it will be anything as beautiful as yours!! Your quilt really sparkles with all those lovely colours and the red in it is gorgeous.
    Keep up the good work!! You have encouraged me to to keep on going too!
    Kate
    Shetland Isles, UK

    Reply
  10. Kathryn says:
    September 3, 2010 at 11:12 pm

    Hi Martha, I stumbled upon your blog and fell in love with this quilt. I’m attempting to copy it now and use up alot of my 1940’s scrap fabric. Do you remember what size your snowball and nine patch block were? Also, did you use the strip piecing method to sew your nine patch? Thanks in advance!

    Reply
  11. June says:
    May 29, 2013 at 7:32 am

    Your quilt is just beautiful. I also would like to know where i can find the pattern for 9 Patch and Snow Ball. June Thiel

    Reply
  12. caroline says:
    September 21, 2013 at 7:19 pm

    So lovely and I am going to attempt a beautiful piece like this. My
    quilt class will begin a snowball this winter. I am going to use this
    one as an example. Ours will never be as beautiful as yours.

    Reply
  13. Barbara Murphree says:
    September 24, 2013 at 7:21 am

    In a lot of older quilts you will find deliberate mistakes. The old wives saying is that the quilter did not want to offend God by making something perfect. Thus a block turned upside down or backward.

    Reply
  14. KB Barden says:
    January 8, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    What are the sizes of the blocks? I have many left from a 9 patch swap that would be fun to use in a quilt like yours.

    Reply
  15. Marje Sener says:
    January 8, 2015 at 8:39 pm

    Beautiful quilt. Those church ladies were being kind and giving you their precious time and love.

    Reply
  16. Betty Eddy says:
    August 25, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    I saw your beautiful quilt and decided to make one I have a lot of scrap material. I know it be as beautiful as yours

    Reply
  17. Shelia says:
    February 16, 2016 at 9:35 am

    Beautiful, I love the old fabric….and I never did find your “mistake”.

    Reply
  18. Amie says:
    January 4, 2017 at 6:55 am

    After piecing all my blocks…1.25″ pieces-2.75″ blocks…I have managed to have made an error lol. Im turning them all on point now to see if it looks more pleasing. I used a gazillion tiny red civil war pieces from my tiny scrap bin my friend gave me. Im not a civil war person but love the friend that gifted me all the scraps 🙂

    Reply

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