No Fuss Snowball Blocks

I loved working on the Snowball Blocks in my Patisserie Waltz Quilt so much that I thought I'd put together a little tutorial for you, after all I haven't posted one in a while and they are so easy you'll be wanting to make them more and more.  Not to mention you'll wonder why you didn't go ahead and make this block sooner as opposed to waiting all this time.

We're going to make a 12" snowball it will be 12.5" while we worth with it of course and will then sew in at 12.5", as a bonus we'll end up with 4 half square triangles which can be used for just about anything else (hint hint - like the back!)

Diagonal lines on HSTriangles

First cut your base fabric.  Cut it at 12.5" square.  Next you will need your corner fabrics, mine are purple.  For those cut four squares of fabric at 4.5" each.  On each of the corner blocks draw a line diagonally across the fabric from corner to corner as seen above.  Please note my corner fabric is a batik with no set top/bottom, but if yours is a standard print you should draw your line on the backside (wrong side) of the fabric and sew the two pretty sides together.

Line the entire small corner square up over one corner of the large square of fabric pretty side kissing pretty side.  Now sew right on top of the line you drew.  Do that for each corner or chain stitch for as many as you like.

Now that you have your almost snowballs.  Some people would cut off the corners fold the print down and call it a snowball block, but just one more step and you will have your bonus half square triangles.

See the second line of stitching next to the first on the blocks to the left vs. the single row of stitching on the blocks to your right?

Now adjust your sewing machine needle over to the right as far as it will go line the edge of the presser foot.  Line the presser foot edge up with the line you stitched.  Does that look like it will leave enough of a seam allowance?  If not draw an offset line 1/2" from the first line you drew.  Now sew using your last row of stitches as a guide or the second line you have drawn. 

Once you have two lines of sewing simply cut between the two lines.  Be careful while you cut the corners off not to accidentally nick any of the other blocks or any other part of the block itself. 

These already look like snowballs!

After they have been cut apart simply press them open.  Now wasn't that easy?  I know for certain you'll be seeing more Snowball Blocks in my quilts in the future.

All done!

Are you wondering what to do with those leftover half square triangles?  Simply square them to 3.5" so they will sew in at 3".  Perhaps I might end up using mine to make some Ohio Stars...

As always feel free to click on any of my images to see them larger and if you still need to see them with more detail you can click on them again when the larger image appears.