Even with its asymmetric sashing and highly varied block sizes, the Penny Sampler still is at heart a sampler quilt.   So... part of the fun of making so many different blocks is thinking about how one might like to use them in other projects!  This winter I've decided to take one of my favorite blocks from the Penny Sampler, the snowflake, and make a wintry baby quilt.

My palette is calm, cool and serene.  The quilt will be mostly a pale, wintry mint with flashes of white, silver and gold.  The "silver and gold" concept was totally inspired by Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  You know how the snowman glides around singing "silver and gold, silver and gold"?  Well, since I've had very little actual snow in my life, apparently I connect snow mainly with movies?  Hmm.

Here is my collection of lovely mint fabrics!  Each will make two snowflake block backgrounds, so I have plenty of options for a baby quilt.

And for the snowflakes themselves I'll use Kona White and two metallics by Cotton & Steel: Netorious in Cloud and in Goldilocks.  I'm glad to have an excuse to sew with silver and gold metallics.  They shine so prettily!

I made my first block in the rainy Precipitation print on a rare South Carolina snow day.  Fitting.  I've resized the block to finish about 10" with a thin background fabric border.  The half square triangles finish just 1.75".

On my first few blocks, I made HST's using the popular 2-block batch method that starts with squares.  In the quilting ruler round-up, I had mentioned I don't use my Fons & Porter Half & Quarter ruler because I prefer the batch method for HST.   Debbie commented that when she uses the ruler she doesn't have to trim her HST.  That was all the encouragement I needed to try the ruler again! 

Now I'm hooked on the Fons & Porter Half & Quarter ruler.  Even with these teeny tiny half square triangles, they come out accurately enough that I don't have to trim before assembling my snowflake blocks.  Hurray!  It's those little things that make a quilter's day.  Thanks, Debbie!