Loose Ends: Snow in Snoqualmie Pass Quilt

I first saw this quilt in the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of McCalls Quilting Magazine. It was designed by Patti Corey and named “Misty Pines.”

When I saw it I was immediately reminded of driving through Snoqualmie Pass on my way to and from WSU in Pullman, WA while both of my kids were in college. Before every trip 5-1/2 hour trip I’d check to see if there was “snow in the pass.” The elevation up there is more than 3000 feet, so it's not unusual for the weather to be snowy in the pass while it's raining down here at sea level.

On one trip following Sarah’s graduation, John and I were moving her furniture back home to the west side. John was driving his Ford F150 loaded with a dresser, desk, and other household items covered with a tarp. I was following him in Sarah’s Audi.

It was below freezing and the sun had already set. As we got closer to the pass, just west of Ellensburg (the halfway point), one of the warning signs announced dangerous snowy conditions in the pass. I called Sarah and asked her to go online and check the Department of Transportation’s website to see what was going in the pass.

She did and reported that as she was checking, they were closing exits on I-90 up in the pass, seven total. A semi-tractor trailer truck was among the many accidents causing the closure. I called John, up ahead of me in the truck and told him to get off at the next exit. We pulled into the deserted parking lot of a closed fruit stand and decided we better turn around, go back to Ellensburg, and get a hotel room.

That’s exactly what we did. Luckily, we got the last hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express, where the phone was ringing off the hook. We were nervous about leaving an apartment worth of belongings secured with only a tarp in the parking lot as it snowed, but we had no choice.

The next morning, the pass was clear and we made it safely back to Puyallup with everything, including our nerves, intact. (see August 15, 2013 blog post)

In ideal conditions, there's snow in the pass frosting the trees, but the pavement on I-90 is clear of snow. That’s when the views of spruce, Douglas firs, cedar and hemlock trees covered with snow are breathtaking and it's safe to calmly appreciate them. Those are the memories that the “Misty Pines” quilt brought back to me. I had to make it!

It was different from any other quilt that I’ve made. The skill level of this quilt is “Advanced.” It’s not because of the construction. I’ve made flying geese blocks many times before, and the angled strips are basic units. What makes this quilt “advanced,” is that it is a study in contrast. The description in the magazine says, “In Patti’s stunning quilt, careful placement of fabrics creates a dramatic scene of snow-covered trees backed by winter darkness.”

The original is composed in grays and white. But up in Snoqualmie pass, it’s dark green, gray, and white, so I changed up the color scheme. There wasn’t much, if any, gray in my fabric stash. The original quilt used fabrics that had textures from nature—stones, or mottled bark. I also used those.

In addition, I shopped for fabric online and at local quilt shops—Pacific Fabrics and the Quilt Barn in Puyallup, Evergreen Quilting and Trains in Tacoma picking up green fabrics to fit my color scheme--batiks, including some with stacked points that looked like pine trees to me.

Fairy Frost fabrics added some shimmer.

I cut and carefully placed pieces on my design wall making sure that light fabrics started at the top, falling into pointed dark mountain fabrics that contrasted with increasingly lighter trees that were snowy white at the bottom. When the quilt top was completed, I stood back and admired it. It was majestic and quiet, everything I’d envisioned.

Quilt top up on my design wall.

But a quilt top isn't a quilt until it's quilted. I made the backing, layered it with the batting and pin basted it. That’s where progress stalled.

I couldn’t decide how to quilt it. I wanted the quilting to look like snow falling. But the snowflakes I doodled looked too childlike. The free motion designs I found looked too playful. This quilt called for something elegant and subtle.

While the quilt rested on the table next to my longarm sewing machine with two other quilt tops waiting to be quilted, life happened. I lost my sister Cynthia to breast cancer. My father’s vascular dementia worsened and he was moved into a nursing home. My brother had a stroke. Daughter Sarah earned a master’s degree at Northwestern University in Evanston outside of Chicago. Son Johnny started working at Amazon in Seattle. Husband John had major back surgery.

New quilting projects caught my eye. My longarm, barely used, had locked up in August 2017 when I tried to get back to quilting. It went into the shop to be repaired.

As 2018 began, I unfolded the quilt that I in my mind I called, “Snow in the Pass.” I was determined to complete it. It was too beautiful to sit folded up any longer. It should be hanging up by the stairs in our family room, while it was still winter. Quilts are supposed to be warm, but I wanted this one to look frosty.

I decided to quilt snowflakes of different sizes on it like fragile lace, using metallic white thread to give it some sparkle. (This is the first time I used metallic thread. I’ve heard nightmares about metallic thread shredding and breaking. I consulted Nancy Ziemann online for her needle recommendations. Her advice was invaluable and I didn’t have any problems.) I traced the snowflakes on Golden Threads tear away paper, pinned them to the quilt, and then sewed on top of the paper using my walking foot.

The angles were too sharp and precise for free motion quilting. When those were done, I went back with my walking foot, switched to silvery variegated rayon thread, and quilted gently curving lines lengthwise to look like gentle snowfall.

It was ready for a binding. I was unsure what color the binding should be. Should I combine different fabrics for the binding? This was a scenic art quilt so it was tricky. I also needed to make a label. I slept on it overnight.

In the morning, I looked for the magazine that the pattern had come from so that I could acknowledge it on the label. I usually set aside any magazines that I make a quilt from. I thought this quilt was on the cover of American Patchwork and Quilting. That wasn’t with my saved magazines. I went online to look at the covers of back issues. No luck.

I googled “pine tree quilt” images. There it was! I had been looking for the wrong magazine, plus it wasn’t on the cover. The correct magazine was indeed in my special magazine collection.

Online, I went to McCall’s Quilting magazine and searched for “Misty Pines.” When it came up, it showed that last year they did a monthly quilt-along to demonstrate how to make this quilt because the kit was so popular, it sold out. I clicked on the last episode to see how they handled the binding. I’m so glad that I did that.

They didn’t bind it. They made a facing! Perfect for this quilt! I watched the video of Laura Stone Roberts apply the facing. Her instructions were easy to follow. I sewed the facing on, learning yet another new technique. Then I added a label, and hanging sleeve, hand stitching them on, and pulled off the tracing paper snowflakes.
“Snow in Snoqualmie Pass” is finished at last!