I Saw the TV Glow – Upcycled T-Shirt

May 11, 2026

You may have seen my previous post about my Silence of the Lambs T-shirt. I made another upcycled t-shirt in the same style! This one is based off the movie I Saw the TV Glow.

I saw “I Saw the TV Glow” (try saying that ten times fast.) with a friend of mine, and we both loved it. Her birthday was a couple weeks ago, and I made this shirt for her as a birthday present. (Ignore that it’s two weeks late.) 

I used all the skills I learned from the Silence of the Lambs shirt to make this one. Overall, I thought the process was much faster, and much smoother. 

I based my design off the movie poster. 

I chose the TV as the motif for the shirt. I thought that adding the silhouette of the person in front of the TV would make the shirt too busy, and having the bottom of the body randomly cut off in the middle would have looked weird. 

I followed the exact same steps that I did for my Silence of the Lambs upcycled t-shirt, but with a TV instead of a moth. 

I printed the pattern on Heat & Bond Featherlite, and fused the pieces onto the t-shirt fabric. Then I cut out the pieces and fused them to each other. 

For the TV screen, I wanted a fabric that imitated TV static. I ended up getting two options for this. One was a heathered magenta shirt, the other was a pair of pink athletic leggings. I ended up using the leggings because the horizontal texture they had looked more like TV static.

I didn’t love working with this fabric, and I would suggest sticking to t-shirts if you were doing this at home. I felt like the athletic fabric was a bit thick for the needle—when I stitched through it, it felt gummy. Maybe using a ball point needle would have helped? But I didn’t think of that until the next day.

For my Silence of the Lambs shirt, I needed to have a backing piece of black fabric behind the moth design so that I could completely cover the design already printed on the shirt.

Here’s the t-shirt I started with.

Even though the motif is large, I probably could have covered the t-shirt design with just the TV, but I still opted to have a backing piece. You can see here that I just fused it to a rough black rectangle.

Sewing the TV to that backing piece made outlining the TV much easier. If I had just fused the TV right onto the shirt, I would be wrangling the shirt while I tried to do my precise outline. 

Somehow, I didn’t get a single picture of the TV after I outlined it, but before I stitched it to the shirt. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess. After I did my outline stitching I trimmed the backing fabric to about 1/4 inch (maybe a little more) all the way around the edge, echoing the TV shape.

I ended up doing something a little funky with the thread for the outline.

Like the title suggests, in the movie poster, the TV is glowing.

I couldn’t make the fabric glow, but I was able to find some pink glow in the dark thread. It’s a peach color, which is not the bright magenta of the movie, but I was determined to make it work. I got a magenta thread that matched the fabric that I chose for the screen, and I used both threads for the outline.

Normally, for applique, I do three passes for the outline. For this project, I did four passes: two with the magenta, and then two with the glow in the dark. It still reads visually as very magenta, but if you let it charge in the sun for a bit and go into a dark room, the outline glows! (I tried to get a picture of the glow, but it wasn’t bright enough to show up on camera.) 

With that, the front of the shirt was finished, and it was time to move on to the back. I wanted to put two things there—a quote from the movie, and an embroidered motif, also from the movie. 

I had a vision for this shirt. For the quote on the back of my Silence of the Lambs shirt, I used whatever colors and letters I had. For this, I wanted to try and stick with one color theme. I picked letters that were all different shades of pink and purple and used them to spell out “There is still time.” 

I sewed them down the same way that I did for the previous shirt, but with two new tricks. I made sure that the adhesive on the back of the letters went ALL the way to the edges. 

I also remembered to change my needle this time! Last time, I hadn’t changed it after sewing through the paper of the fusible adhesive on the black backing. This time I remembered, and sewing the letters down was snarl-free. 

I did forget one thing that I learned last time. In fact, I can almost guarantee you that I’ll forget it again, because I always do.

I didn’t use a press cloth when I started fusing the letters down, and I once again got plastic residue on my mother’s iron.

(It cleans off quick with a dryer sheet, but it still smells bad.)

The original post about ransom note upcycled t-shirts by Swoodson Says says to use a presscloth, and I said in my Silence of the Lambs post that you should use a presscloth. Even with all that, I still forgot again. 

It wasn’t a huge deal, and with the presscloth I was able to fuse the letters down and sew them in place. 

You may have noticed something else on the back of the shirt. A little ghost above the letters. This is the embroidered motif I mentioned. In the movie, this ghost glows on the backs of the characters’ necks. I thought it would be fun to embroider the same image on the back of the shirt. I really wanted it to glow pink in the dark.

I bought a glow in the dark braid that seemed promising. It looked great on the spool, but it didn’t work for this project.

The thread was thick and plastic-y. I expected that. It comes with the territory when you’re looking at glow in the dark stuff. Sadly, it just didn’t work with the t-shirt fabric. I couldn’t pull the thread tight on the t-shirt without the whole shirt bunching up, so the thread wouldn’t lay flat, and it made my lines look sloppy. I think that this thread would work great on a thicker, more stable fabric.

I ended up swapping to a magenta embroidery thread, and I think it looks much better. 

And that’s it! 

Custom "I Saw the TV Glow" T-shirt with retro monitor and ghost design.

I’ve really been enjoying upcycling old t-shirts this way, and I was glad to have an excuse to make another one so soon. I hope my friend enjoys it! (Even if it is two weeks late.)

Upcycled Applique Silence of the Lambs T-shirt

April 13, 2026
Applique Silence of the Lambs T-shirt with moth design, perfect for fans of unique, themed apparel.

Well, Clarice? Have the lambs stopped screaming? 

Silence of the Lambs is one of my favorite movies. I’ll never turn down a chance to watch it, and I quote it all the time. 

One of my goals when I started re-doing my closet was to up my t-shirt game. I have a bunch of good movie t-shirts already, but sometimes I can’t find one for a specific movie that I like…like Silence of the Lambs. 

My mom designed a death’s head moth quilt pattern recently (spoiler – it’ll be released soon) And since that features on the movie poster (and also in the movie) I thought it would be a great choice for a Silence of the Lambs shirt. 

This whole project was basically one huge test, so this post will be longer than the previous ones I’ve written. 

I, of course, didn’t take a picture of the t-shirt before I did all of this. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess. I was able to find a similar looking shirt on google. It looked like this, but the logo was beige and gray, and also flocked. 

T-shirt with eagle logo design.

The logo was too big to cover with the moth alone. I would either need to take the logo off, or make a backing bigger than the moth to cover more of the shirt. 

First, I tried to take the logo off. I thought it might have been an iron-on, so if I heated it up with an iron again, I could peel it off. No luck. My thought process was that taking the logo off would be better than covering it because adding an additional layer of backing behind the moth might make the front of the shirt stiff, which would make it hang weird. 

Once I figured out that I couldn’t take the logo off, I knew I was going to have to add the extra backing. I’ll get back to that in a bit. 

I printed the moth design onto a plain piece of paper and checked the size of it compared to the t-shirt. Even though it wouldn’t cover the logo on the shirt, I liked the size of the moth in proportion to the shirt. If I wanted it bigger, I would have had to print it on two separate pieces of paper, which would have been a pain, so I’m glad the original size worked out. After that I basically followed the normal instructions for one of Mom’s quilt patterns, except I cut the pieces out of t-shirt fabric (like she did for her snail dress) instead of quilting cotton. 

One other change that I made was using Heat & Bond Featherlite fusible adhesive instead of the normal Lite weight that we usually use when quilting. I did this for the same reason that I tried to take the logo off the shirt. I wanted my design to be as thin as possible so it didn’t mess with the way the shirt hung. I WOULD NOT DO THIS AGAIN. The Featherlite was fine at first, but it didn’t stick great, and peeled up a bit while I was sewing. I didn’t have this problem using the normal Heat & Bond Lite with T-shirt fabric, so next time I’ll just use that. 

Just a fun heads up. I spent most of this project paranoid that everything I was adding was too thick. It literally didn’t even matter a single bit. The shirt hangs fine, and I stressed over nothing.  

I fused all the moth pieces together using a light box to position them, so I ended up with the moth assembled in one piece, ready to fuse to the shirt.

Now it was time to make an extra backing that would cover the logo.

I designed the backing by just cutting an oval out of a piece of printer paper. When it was the size and shape that I wanted (the moth fit nicely inside it and the oval fully covered the logo) I cut the shape out of fusible adhesive, fused it to black t-shirt fabric, and fused the moth to the oval. I thought about not putting fusible adhesive on the back of the oval, but I wanted it to be stabilized – both for sewing the moth to it and then sewing it to the shirt. I was worried that if I didn’t put the adhesive on the back that when I sewed the moth on it would stretch the backing oval out of shape. Same for if I sewed the oval to the shirt with no adhesive behind it to stabilize.

In the end, the front of the shirt turned out really well, so I think I made a good call by putting the adhesive on the back of the oval.

Time to do the outline stitching. 

I sewed the outline of the moth in an orange and yellow variegated thread. Since the moth is mostly gray, I wanted to add a little pop of color. I was also inspired by the movie poster, which has both orange and yellow. 

Close-up of a woman's face with red eyes and a moth with a skull on its back.

I did three passes with the outline, just like on our quilt samples. It made a nice bold outline, and I think it turned out really well. 

Colorful moth applique on black fabric T-shirt. Unique handmade design inspired by Silence of the Lambs.

I kept the paper backing on the oval when I sewed the moth to it. I will warn you that sewing through the paper WILL dull your needle. If you do what I did, you should change your needle after. I didn’t, and it came back to bite me. Learn from my mistakes. 

After I sewed the moth to the oval, I peeled off the backing paper, fused the oval to the shirt, and sewed it down with a zigzag stitch. I did this instead of a straight stitch because I didn’t want the edges of the oval to curl up, which would have happened with a straight stitch after a few washes. Since they’re both black fabrics, you can barely see where I sewed the oval to the shirt. 

Silence of the Lambs moth applique T-shirt for adults or kids, featuring a spooky moth design.

Now that I was done with the front of the shirt, it was time for the back. I was inspired by a Swoodson Says post about ransom note letters from old t-shirts. I followed her instructions pretty much to the letter (no pun intended). It’s pretty easy. Just fuse Heat & Bond to the back of the t-shirt. Make sure to leave a margin around the letters. Then cut them down to size, peel the backs off, fuse them, sew them down, done!

This was my first time trying this out, and I learned a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to get the fusible adhesive completely on the back of the letters – especially if the word is curved. It’s crucial to have adhesive on every corner of the letter. This will save you grief later.

I also found that letters with a black background were harder to sew to the shirt because I couldn’t really see the edges. If you’re not sewing black letters onto a black t-shirt, I think you’ll be fine. 

I laid my letters out on the back of the shirt, and fiddled with them until I liked the placement.

Custom applique Silence of the Lambs T-shirt with quote design.

I peeled off the backs and fused the letters down.

USE A PRESSCLOTH FOR THIS.

I should have, but I didn’t at first and the letters left a residue on my mother’s iron (don’t tell her). Use a presscloth just to be safe. And if you get something sticky on the iron, use a used dryer sheet to wipe it off the hot surface.

Once everything was fused down, I got to sewing. I opted for black thread for all of them. I thought that using the same variegated thread that I used on the front would make the back too busy, and color matching all of the letter squares would make me crazy. 

I tried out just one outlining pass with the black, but it looked too thin for my taste, so I went ahead and did three passes like I did on the front of the shirt. When I started sewing the letters, I did three passes on one and then moved on to the next, did three passes, and so on. I wouldn’t recommend that, and I stopped doing it after the first word. I would recommend giving each letter a single pass. I really had to wrangle the t-shirt a lot to go around the small letters, and all that movement made the corners of some of the other letters peel up. I felt much more secure after I got a single pass of outlining on all the letters – then I could wrangle without worry. 

Hey, remember how I said to change out your needle after sewing through that paper earlier? And also how I said that I didn’t do that? Yeah, now is the time that I learned my lesson. On my first pass on some of the letters—specifically ones with cheaper t-shirt fabric, or ones without adhesive in every corner—the machine sucked them down. This was totally the needle’s fault. It wasn’t piercing all the way through, instead pushing the t-shirt down into the bobbin area and making a huge mess. There are at least three letters that this happened to before I realized that I needed to change the needle. 

Applique Silence of the Lambs T-shirt with letter blocks design.

It’s a bit hard to tell in the photos, but the places where the outline gets wonky are the places where the machine sucked the fabric down. Those spots are a hard knot of thread behind where the fabric bunched and the feed dogs didn’t get a good grip. If this happens to you, don’t try to seam-rip it. There’s a very high chance that you’ll end up ripping the fabric instead of the thread. My advice is to leave the snarl, but try your best to flatten it on the next pass by pulling the t-shirt tight, and basically pulling it through the machine so that it doesn’t have a chance to get stuck in the same place. 

Once I got all the letters sewn down (which took like 2 hours of my Dune audiobook), I ironed the back again to set the stitches. Make sure to use a presscloth again. 

Then I was all done! 

Here’s the front…

Silence of the Lambs moth applique T-shirt, black casual wear for horror movie fans.

And here’s the back…

Applique Silence of the Lambs T-shirt with colorful letter blocks design.

In hindsight, I would have moved the letters over to the right a bit. I wanted them as far left as I could make them, but when I wear the shirt, I find that the first letters of the words disappear a bit. 

Even though there are things I would change on the next project, I’m really happy with how this shirt turned out. I’m already thinking ahead to what other movies I could make shirts for. Maybe a bee for Candyman? Or a syringe filled with glowing green liquid for Re-Animator? If anyone else does a project like this, I’d love to know. There are so many possibilities!

Sewing Machine Needles Wear Out!

April 11, 2026
Cute moose with antlers and a small lemming, encouraging sewing machine needle changing.

Did you know that sewing machine needle wear out quickly and need to be replaced?

Most guidelines say to replace them after 4-6 hours of use, or every project.

Most people do not do this.

A worn out needle gets microscopic burrs and nicks and fractures – all of which will impact your sewing.

Whenever someone contacts me with a sewing problem, my first question is almost always, “Have your tried changing your needle?”

It’s the “Have you tried turning your computer off and on again?” of the sewing world. 😂

An old needle can cause skipped stitches, wobbly stitches, little nests of thread on the bottom of your stitching, broken thread, tension problems, snagged fabric, and more.

It can also cause fraying on the edges of your raw edge applique.

Take a look at the itty bitty lemming on this block.

Fabric applique featuring a cute moose and lemming for sewing and quilting projects.

If you want to see it closer, click on the image so you can zoom in. (You may need to right click the image and choose Open Image in New Tab, depending on your operating system.)

I used the same fabrics for both the moose and the lemming, the same fusible adhesive, carefully fused for the correct amount of time.

But the edges of the lemming are all frayed!

It’s not because it’s smaller pieces. It’s because my needle was so dull it was basically punching through the fabric, forcing the fibers apart.

Tip – when your needle gets super dull you can actually hear the difference. It sounds like it’s… well, like it’s punching through the fabric. I can’t think of any other way to describe it.

Sewing through heavier fabrics will make a needle wear out faster. So will sewing through paper – just like using your fabric scissors on paper will dull them.

Keep an old pill bottle by my machine to hold the spent needles, and don’t hesitate to change them frequently! Change them with every new project, and change them any time your machine acts “weird” and you can’t figure out what’s wrong.

Needles are cheap compared to having to redo something because a dull one messed it up. 🙁

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Add A Fly – Free Applique Pattern

March 30, 2026
Free applique pattern for kids' craft projects.

Sometimes you just need to add some flies to your quilt. 😂

I added extra flies to my Pond Life sample by using the fly pattern that’s included with the Frasier Frog pattern in that bundle.

Cute, whimsical quilt with pond animals.

But what if you’re making a quilt that doesn’t include the frog?

Maybe you want to add some flies to your barnyard, or your arctic scene, or your garden.

Now there’s a free pattern just for the fly!

This is so easy to make.

Download the template sheet here.

It has enough pieces to make eighteen flies.

Trace or print the template pieces onto the paper side of paper-backed fusible adhesive. I use Heat & Bond Lite for all my quilts.

Cut the pieces out roughly and fuse them to the back of your fabric.

Applique pattern for a fly design, featuring a simple black outline on white fabric.

I used the ovals for wings and the circle for the body, but you can switch that around, use all ovals or all circles. You do you, and bugs come in all shapes and sizes and colors!

Cut the pieces out neatly.

Fly applique fabric pieces for sewing project.

Peel off the paper backing and stick the pieces where you want them, tucking the wings behind the body.

Fuse in place and outline the pieces.

Done!

Cute fly applique pattern for sewing projects and crafts. Perfect for kids' clothing, quilts, DIY.

I added this one to the muskox block for my new Arctic Chill bundle (coming soon).

Applique pattern featuring a cute muskox with a fly overhead, perfect for quilting and sewing.

You can add these to so many patterns! I already mentioned the Farm Animals. What about the Rainforest bundle? The rainforest is full of pesky bugs of all kinds! Hungry Birds like to eat bugs – they might appreciate some added to their quilt. Carter Chameleon might like some too!

And bugs don’t have to be pests! Use black and yellow striped fabric for the bodies and add a bunch of tiny bees buzzing around in your Wild Flowers quilts! Bumblebees are also really common in the arctic, along with black flies and midges.

I could keep going, but I think you get the idea. You could add some flies to almost any quilt!

Have fun with these guys!

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Working with Cheater Quilt Fabric

February 5, 2026

I love to quilt.

I hope that’s obvious 🙂 but sometimes it’s good to be explicit.

I also love cheater quilts!

I’ve been adding a lot of new cheater quilt fabric to my shop lately, and I’ve received a couple of emails from people asking if I have any posts about working with this kind of fabric.

That made me realize I don’t!

I’ve posted works-in-progress on social media, and written about it in newsletters, but I didn’t have a single comprehensive post here.

Time to fix that!

What Is Cheater Quilt Fabric?

When you make a cheater quilt, you aren’t piecing the quilt top. (That’s the “cheat.”) You’re using fabric that has a quilt already printed on it, like this.

Colorful animal face quilt with fox, bear, owl, and rabbit designs for kids.

You layer that fabric with batting and backing and then quilt it and – boom! – you have a cheater quilt.

So a cheater quilt is basically a very specific kind of whole cloth quilt.

Why Cheater Quilts?

In addition to being fast – cheater prints are also the least expensive way to make a quilt. No waste! Nothing lost to seam allowance!

As an example – here’s the fabric for a cheater quilt I made a few years ago. It’s 2 yards of the Monster Monster Cheater Quilt print on organic cotton sateen, so the printed size (not including the strips of white along the selvedge) is 56 inches wide and 72 inches tall.  

A comparable size quilt top made with any of my patterns would use about 6 yards of 42-inch wide fabric. Even factoring in the different fabric widths – that’s still more than twice as much fabric!

So cheaters are faster and less expensive.

Different Kinds of Cheater Fabrics

If you look at those two prints I’ve shown, you’ll see they’re a little different.

The Woodland Critters print you see in the first photo is a classic cheater quilt fabric. It’s laid out in squares just like a real quilt. I took mine a step further and actually photographed real quilt blocks, so you can see all my quilting and outline stitches too. Here’s a close-up of the Farm Animals cheater fabric so you can see.

Most cheater fabric doesn’t take it that far. 😂 But I kind of love the tiny imperfections that get included this way. If you look closely at the curve of quilting right next to the pig’s cheek you can see that I went a little off the darker blue line when I quilted that block. It still has a made-by-human-hands feel. 🥰

Not all of my cheater fabrics are made with my quilt actual blocks, but I’m adding more all the time and the description will always make it clear.

The Monster Monster print you see in the video snippet is quilt-ish. It’s not laid out in a grid of square blocks, but they’re square-ish and they’re in a grid layout – but it’s a wonky grid. This has quilt vibes without actually looking like a “proper” quilt.

I also have some fabrics in the Cheater Quilts section of my shop that aren’t cheater quilts in the strictest sense, because their layout isn’t like a quilt. They’re just large-scale prints that work really well for whole-cloth quilts, so I group them in with the cheaters because it’s the same concept. You’ll see an example of this in the next section.

How to Finish a Cheater Quilt

When you make a cheater quilt, the “cheating” is in how you make the top. You still have to quilt the layers together. I like to hand quilt my cheaters using Big Stitch Quilting – but you can also machine quilt, or tie, or finish it any way you like.

Some people say it’s a “waste of time and effort” to hand quilt a cheater quilt. To them I say, “Pfui! It’s my fabric, my thread, my hands, my time. I can do whatever I want.”

Here’s an example of a quilt in progress using my Meadow print in blue and yellow…

And here’s that finished quilt after washing so it has all the awesome crinkle.

Bright floral quilt featuring cheater fabric with blue, yellow, green, and orange colors. Perfect fo.

When I hand-quilt my cheaters, I just pin-baste the layers together and then do big stitch quilting around each shape. This, to me, is as relaxing as coloring. In fact, I think of it as coloring in slow motion. With a needle and thread, of course. 😁

I don’t need to make any decisions so there’s zero pressure. I just choose a thread color that kind of matches the shape I’m outlining, and then it’s endless running stitches – the easiest stitch there is. I love the little sound the eye of the needle makes when it pops through the fabric, followed by the soft hiss of the thread as I pull it through. I love the feel of the fabric and thread in my hands, and the play of light on the surface. No thinking, just enjoying the moment and the repetition of thousands of stitches, filling the surface of the fabric with texture. It’s as close as I get to meditation.

Here’s an example of one of the “blocks” of the Monster Monster print.

hand-quilted caterpillar monster

You can see that I also quilted some of the purple block behind him, and every other white stripe in the gray background.

One thing I learned from this particular project is that minky and hand-quilting don’t go well together. 🙁 If you look closely you can see lots of dark purple specks in those white stripes. That was the pile of the minky getting pulled through to the front of the quilt. 🙁 I’ve machine quilted lots of minky- and cuddle-backed quilts with no problem, so I think it was just the hand-stitching that caused the problem.

How to Make a Cheater Quilt

Here are links to all the tutorials you’ll need.

  • Order your fabric. You can find all my cheater prints here. I recommend printing on organic cotton sateen. That’s the fabric base I’ve used for all my cheaters and I love how vibrant the colors print – and how vibrant they remain after lots and lots of washes. Two yards makes a nice couch-sized quilt. If you want to make a big bed-sized quilt, Spoonflower now has extra-wide cotton sateen.
  • Don’t forget to order backing and binding, too! Most of my cheater fabrics have links to coordinating prints to make that easy.
  • Layer and baste your quilt sandwich. My favorite batting is Warm & Natural. I wrote a review of it here.
  • Here’s a list (with links to sources) of all my favorite tools and supplies, including my favorite batting, and thread and that square Q-snap frame you see in a lot of photos.
  • Quilt your quilt.
    • There’s a video here showing how I do Big Stitch Quilting. I really like using Sulky Petites 12 wt. thread for this kind of stitching. It comes in loads of great colors, doesn’t need separating, and comes on neat and tidy little spools. I review the thread here.
    • If you want to machine quilt your layers together, there’s a video here showing how to machine quilt. This post has extra tips for machine quilting a big quilt on a standard sewing machine. And this post has one of my favorite tips for machine quilting without swearing. 😂
    • If you want to do traditional hand quilting, there’s a tutorial here.
    • You can also tie your quilt, but I don’t have a tutorial for that.
  • After you stitch the entire surface, you just need to bind your quilt. There’s a video showing my favorite method here.

Happy stitching!

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Snowflakes – free applique pattern

January 26, 2026

These little snowflakes come in two different sizes.

The larger size fits well in a full-sized square block. Add some big snowflakes to any pattern!

The smaller size fits in half-blocks, perfect for adding complexity to a simple grid pattern. (There’s a PDF here with all the info you need for that layout.)

You can also add small snowflakes to any regular block patterns, for a little extra fun. 😁

Obviously, they’ll work great with the Arctic Chill pattern. But they’d also be fun added to the Chirp, Backyard Birds, and Bunches of Bears patterns!

Here’s a little mock-up with some arctic animals.

Some (but not all) of these animals are in the Arctic Chill pattern. I’m still working on updating that collection. Look for new versions of these blocks coming soon…

  • narwhal
  • walrus
  • lemming

And these totally new blocks…

  • reindeer/caribou/moose
  • beluga whale

Download the free Snowflakes pattern here.

Have fun!

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Topsy Turvy Grid Quilt Layout Guide

October 27, 2025

Want to add visual interest to your quilt, but keep the grid layout as simple as possible?

Try spinning some of the blocks to create a topsy turvy layout!

That example above uses just one block – the silly Skyler Sloth – but you could use any single or multi-block pattern. I think Brette Bunny would be especially cute, but you could also make a swarm of mosquitos or bees, tumbling jellyfish, somersaulting bears – anything you can imagine!

None of my single-block patterns include specific instructions for full quilts.

That’s where my handy-dandy layout guides come in.

Each guide contains a materials list and cutting instructions for six different quilt sizes – from Itty Bitty Baby to King Size.

Download the Topsy Turvy Grid Layout Guide here.

I’m working on similar guides for other layouts too! That way no matter what layout your pattern shows, you can easily use the blocks in a different design. Here’s what I have so far and what’s coming. . .

If you’re just getting started, you’ll find a very simple How to Make a Quilt guide here.

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How to Window Cut Fusible Adhesive

October 19, 2025
Photo showing a bird quilt block appliqued with fusible adhesive, with the remains of the paper backing sitting on top of the block. text reads: How to Window Cut Fusible Adhesive

I use fusible adhesive to applique almost all of my quilt blocks, and I get a lot of questions about the stiffness.

I use Heat & Bond Lite. Yes – it is somewhat stiff when you’re making the block. I find that stiffness VERY helpful when I’m doing all my outline stitching. Basically, it acts as a wonderful stabilizer.

The first time you wash the quilt, it softens up a LOT. After a second wash I find it doesn’t feel stiff at all.

But maybe you like using a different brand that doesn’t soften as much in the wash. Or maybe you’re making a wall-hanging that you never plan to wash. Or maybe you like to layer on lots and lots of pieces and don’t want the added thickness of lots of layers of adhesive. Or maybe you’re in the middle of a project and you’re almost out of fusible and it’s raining and you don’t want to leave the house to get more so you’re trying to conserve every last bit.

It doesn’t matter why. 🙂 I’ve had several people ask if I can show how to do window cutting with fusible adhesive, so here it is!

Step 1

Print or trace your pattern just like normal. If you want, you can trace smaller pieces inside larger ones – just leave at least 1/2 inch between any lines.

Step 2

Rough cut around each piece just like normal. Leave a little extra all the way around the outside of each piece.

Step 3

Cut away the inside of each piece, leaving at least 1/4 inch of fusible. You can use scissors, but I think it’s much easier to use an X-Acto knife.

Step 4

Fuse the pieces to the wrong side of your fabric.

Photos showing window-cut fusible adhesive on the back of applique bird pieces.

On the left side of the photo you can see the window-cut pieces fused to the back of the fabric. On the right you can see the bits that I cut out of the inside. You can use those cut-out bits for smaller applique pieces.

Step 5

Clean cut around the pieces on the solid lines, just like normal.

Bird applique pieces with window-cut fusible adhesive applied to the back.

Step 6

Trace any placement or stitching lines.

Bird applique pieces with placement and stitching lines traced onto the fabric.

Normally any placement and stitching lines (here the wing and eye placement and the eyelashes) are on the paper side of the fusible adhesive, but you cut that away. You’ll need to lay the pieces over the placement guide of your pattern and trace those lines.

Step 7

Layer the pieces together, fuse them in place, and do all the outline stitching, just like normal.

Finished!

So there you go – the ease of applique with fusible adhesive with the softness of needle-turn applique.

Happy stitching!

Vibrant handmade crochet toys and patterns from Shiny Happy World.

Here are links to all the posts showing how to applique with fusible adhesive – my favorite method. It’s fast and easy and (with the right materials) it holds up beautifully to rough use and repeated washing.

Here are links to special posts about eyes.

Here are links to some extra fun things you can do with your applique.

Other Applique Methods

Finished with this topic?

Return to the Let’s Make a Quilt main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons about outline stitching.

Mushrooms – Free Applique Pattern

July 7, 2025
Yellow mushroom applique pattern, digital illustration, bright colorful mushroom design for crafts and quilting.

These little mushrooms used to be available only as part of the Woodland Critters pattern, but now they’re a free pattern that you can combine with any of your animal patterns.

Obviously, they’ll work great with the Woodland Critters bundles (Woodland Bundle #1 and Woodland Bundle #2), but they’d also be fun to add to the Chirp pattern or the Wild Flowers pattern.

Or just use them on their own! I’ve always thought they’d make fun placemats. (There’s a free pattern here.)

You could add more than one mushroom to a single square or to a double-size block. The samples you see above are made on blocks that finish at 5 x 10 inches – perfect for adding half-blocks to any of my patterns.

There’s a PDF here for Added Half-Block Layouts. I’ve done all the math for you – calculating yardage, providing cutting instructions and layout guides for six different quilt sizes, from Itty Bitty Baby to King Size. Here’s what that layout looks like.

And, of course, you could make an entire quilt full of nothing but mushrooms!

For this pattern I don’t provide as detailed instructions as usual. It’s just too simple a pattern!

If this is your first time doing applique with fusible adhesive, you’ll find detailed instructions here.

Here’s the nutshell version.

  • Print or trace the templates onto the paper side of paper-backed fusible adhesive. (I use Heat & Bond Lite for all my quilts.)
  • Roughly cut around each piece.
  • Fuse to the back of your fabric.
  • Cut the piece out neatly on the solid lines.
  • Peel off the paper backing.
  • Position a stem onto your block.
  • Position a mushroom cap on your stem.
  • Fuse in place.
  • Outline stitch around each piece.

Done!

Here’s a video showing me assembling both of my sample blocks.

You can use any stem with any cap. And feel free to get playful with your colors. Mushrooms come in every color of the rainbow! I saw a shiny purple mushroom once that looked like it was made of glass!

Download the templates here.

Have fun!

Simple Trees – Free Applique Pattern

July 7, 2025
Green applique tree pattern for quilting and sewing projects, free downloadable design.

These simple trees used to be available only as part of the Woodland Critters pattern, but now they’re a free pattern that you can combine with any of your animal patterns.

Obviously, they’ll work great with the Woodland Critters bundles (Woodland Bundle #1 and Woodland Bundle #2), but they’d also be fun to add to the Shiny Happy Houses pattern, or the Bunches of Bears pattern, or the Backyard Birds pattern.

Or just use them on their own! I’ve always thought they’d make pretty placemats. (There’s a free pattern here.) And I’d love to see a four seasons set! Just change out the fabrics!

You could add more than one tree to a single square or to a double-size block. The samples you see above are made on blocks that finish at 5 x 10 inches – perfect for adding half-blocks to any of my patterns.

There’s a PDF here for Added Half-Block Layouts. I’ve done all the math for you – calculating yardage, providing cutting instructions and layout guides for six different quilt sizes, from Itty Bitty Baby to King Size. Here’s what that layout looks like.

And, of course, you could make an entire forest quilt full of trees and nothing but trees!

For this pattern I don’t provide as detailed instructions as usual. It’s just too simple a pattern!

If this is your first time doing applique with fusible adhesive, you’ll find detailed instructions here.

Here’s the nutshell version.

  • Print or trace the templates onto the paper side of paper-backed fusible adhesive. (I use Heat & Bond Lite for all my quilts.)
  • Roughly cut around each piece.
  • Fuse to the back of your fabric.
  • Cut the piece out neatly on the solid lines.
  • Peel off the paper backing.
  • Position a tree top onto your block.
  • Position a set of branches on your tree top.
  • Fuse in place.
  • Outline stitch around each piece.

Done!

Here’s a video showing me assembling all four of my sample blocks.

You can use any tree top with any set of branches. You can even cut most of the branches off and just use the trunk. (If you do this, position the trunk piece behind the tree top piece.)

Download the templates here.

Have fun!