ODE TO THE ICE CREAM CONE QUILT – Around The Frame

The weather is hot and what could be more refreshing than an ice cream cone? The beauty of an ice cream cone quilt block is they are very easy to imagine and make. If you Google “ice cream cone quilt pattern” and then click “image” up top, you will find over 975,000 links demonstrating an array of styles from cones that look like the traditional bridal bouquet pattern to simple geometric cone shapes to ice cream scoops made of hexagons.

The nice part of creating them is it is a great way to use up fabric scraps. Since ice cream comes in colors ranging from the traditional vanilla, chocolate and strawberry to mint chip, mango, cotton candy, raspberry swirl you name it, you can dip into your stash and design single, double and triple dip cones to delight the ice cream fans in your life. You can make each scoop uniformly the same, make them in different sizes from bottom to top, strip piece the fabric to add a little more texture to the design.

Now as far as the cone goes, the traditionalist is apt to use light brown or light gold fabrics to mimic the look of an actual cone. The easiest cone to make is iconic sugar cone that resembles an elongated triangle. The wafer/cake cone is also easy to design:  Start with a basic rectangle then add a lip about an inch from the top on both sides. Take the long sides of the rectangle and narrow them slightly from top to bottom.

Now you’ve pieced scoops and cones together so it’s time to decide what to appliqué. Depending on the colors you’ve chosen, you may want to appliqué them either by hand or machine to the same background fabric or you may want to use different background fabrics to make the individual cones POP! The latter would be my preference to reflect no two cones are alike. Of course I haven’t looked at all 975,000+ images, so I don’t know for sure, but I didn’t see any images where the ice cream has run down the side of the cone which one would expect to happen on a hot July day!

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So give designing an ice cream cone block your best shot and post the results on the Born Again Quilts Facebook page. Who knows? You might be the winner of an ice cream cone from the Friendly Fox, courtesy of BAQ!

Lois Levihn is the owner of Born Again Quilts where vintage textiles are bought, sold and restored. Located at 4005 South Wayne Ave in the heart of 46807. You may contact her at bornagainquilts@frontier.com