I chose this block in part because I noticed that I’d only completed one other block in row F, and I didn’t want Block F5 to feel alone any longer. The other factor in my decision is that I thought this relatively easy snowball block would make a good warmup for some more difficult snowball blocks that I’d like to tackle soon.

The construction process for this one was pretty simple. The only snag was when I realized that the snowball was not a true octagon – four of the sides were slightly shorter than the other four. I had forgotten to bring the pattern with me to determine which way the snowball should be oriented, so I had to content myself with just marking the stitching lines at the doctor’s office, and waiting till later to stitch the pieces together.

Once I got home and looked at the pattern, I verified that I had indeed cut out the snowball the correct way, so that the fabric grain would line up properly with the rest of the block. Now I was finally ready to stitch. I took the correctly-cut pieces with me to my hand quilting group on Saturday and got to work.

Our group’s monthly get-together is a great opportunity for me to spend three uninterrupted hours on hand sewing projects, but it also gets me out of my shell a bit. While we stitch on our various handwork projects, we chitchat about things that aren’t really earth-shattering, but that help us bond together. I rarely see these friends outside of this venue, but we pick up again each month like no time has passed at all … hearing about one person’s business trip to Europe, or another’s new job, or comparing notes about wacky relatives. And of course, admiring each other’s quilting projects.

While it took me a couple of evenings to get all the pieces cut out and marked with stitching lines, I’m proud to report that I got all the stitching for this block done in a single afternoon with my group. A fellow quilter recently lamented in a Facebook post about how it took her an entire hour to hand piece a pinwheel block, which she felt was unacceptably slow – and here I am excited about getting just the stitching part of a block done in under 3 hours.

Maybe I’m chitchatting too much at these hand quilting gatherings, and not sewing enough? That’s probably a factor, but I think mostly I’m just a slow stitcher. The good news is, I’m pretty process-oriented when it comes to quilting, so it generally doesn’t bother me if it takes a long time. The activity of sewing is more important to me than the finished product.

One of the big advantages of handwork (whether piecing, appliqué, or quilting) is that, while slower, it allows one to be more social. I recently taught hand quilting in a large room where several small sewing classes were all being taught at once. Afterward, several people from the other (machine-based) sewing classes told me they were jealous of all the fun our class appeared to be having, talking and laughing while we hand quilted. That social benefit is much harder to achieve over the constant hum of sewing machines.

Not only is this block keeping the other block in its row from feeling like a loner, it’s keeping me from feeling like a loner. I’m not a particularly outgoing person, so it’s super cool to get together with my handwork friends each month.

I’ve finally completed at least two blocks in each row of the quilt, but this is my only snowball block so far. I think I need to make it some snowball block friends … so it won’t be lonely.