I love Quilt As You Go and use it for almost all of my quilts – but cutting the batting squares and then trimming the finished blocks to size makes a real mess of your cutting mat. All those cotton fibers get embedded in the mat and no amount of rubbing with a rag will get them out.
But there’s a really easy solution – easy, fast, and cheap.
Yep. One of those inexpensive white artist erasers.
Just rub it on the mat wherever it’s fuzzy, like you’re erasing the fuzz.
It pulls all the fuzz right out of the cuts and balls it up so you can just brush it into the trash.
Easy peasy.
In five minutes your cutting mat will look almost like new, all ready for your next quilt. 🙂
Here are some related posts about rotary cutting tools and how to use them. . .
The Fish Quilt pattern is finished! I did the final quilting with decorative stitches that come standard on my sewing machine. More on that in a minute.
All week I’ve been sharing peeks behind the scenes at some of the design decisions I made for my sample quilt.
This is different from the waves I quilted into the background blocks. This is the final round of quilting – just over the seams joining the blocks – that holds the backing to the quilt.
Usually I do either straight line quilting 1/4″ on each side of all the seams, or a fairly open and narrow zigzag over the seams.
But sometimes I find a decorative stitch on my machine that will be perfect for a quilt – and that’s what I did for this one.
Doesn’t this look like bubbles?
I used it for all the vertical seams, because streams of bubbles like this travel straight up. 🙂
For the horizontal seams I used a small wavy stitch to echo the wavy quilting within each block.
I used a variegated blue thread for both of them.
(For the Beep Beep quilt I did the final round of quilting with a decorative stitch that looked just like tire tracks. Perfect!)
Decorative stitches like the bubbly one CAN BE TRICKY – so I recommend doing some test stitching on a swatch to make sure it’s going to work for you.
The biggest problem is with stitches where the feed dogs move the quilt back and forth to achieve the stitch, instead of always steadily forward. It can be very hard to manage that back and forth motion with a large, heavy quilt in there!
Here’s where I went wrong on my quilt.
I didn’t have the quilt “fluffed” loose enough and it was hooked on the corner of my working surface. That was keeping it from feeding through properly, and you can see in the top of the photo where the stitches are all scrunched together and those bubbly circles are distorted and almost overlapping each other.
Instead of properly fixing the problem, I gave the quilt a tug – and ended up feeding the next section through too quickly, so that I made distorted wavy spirals instead of circles. 🙁
Sigh. I really know better. I slowed down and “stuffed and fluffed” properly for the rest of the quilt and everything else looks great. 🙂
It’s a lot of fun to use decorative stitching for the quilting, but only do it if you have the patience for it. If not (or if this is your first time machine quilting) use either a straight stitch, or a wide stitch that moves steadily forward, like a zigzag.
I hope some of you will share close-ups of your quilting in the Shiny Happy People Facebook group! It’s always so much fun to see what design decisions everyone else is making!
Here are all my posts about hand quilting and Big Stitch quilting. I don’t use these techniques with fusible applique or Quilt As You Go, but I LOVE using Big Stitch Quilting with my cheater fabric.
Some of the most common questions I get are about choosing fabric for a quilt. People often want to know how to choose colors that go together, but I also get questions about how to choose the right print.
Usually I make things really easy on myself by choosing a tone-on-tone print or blender. These work GREAT for applique, because the fabrics read as a solid (making it easy to “see” each shape distinctly), but they have texture from the print (making your finished block more interesting).
A lot of times a high-contrast print fights against your applique, because you tend to see all the shapes within the fabric more than you see the shape that you’ve cut the fabric into.
But sometimes we can use that tendency to our advantage and make a high-contrast print work for us.
I’m using examples from the Fish quilt pattern – but this applies to choosing and using your fabric print for any quilt. Here’s just one example of a block from the Wild Flowers quilt pattern that uses stripes really well. Having smaller vertical stripes in that top section suggests the stamens of a flower.
So – back to the fish. In addition to the crosshatch and tiny polkadots prints I used, I also used some skinny stripes. It’s those stripes I want to focus on today.
When you’re working with stripes, you really want to pay attention to the way you position the applique pieces. I actually do that with all kinds of fabrics. See how the crosshatching on Gerald’s body runs at an angle, and on the spot and his tail it runs straight up and down?
I actually did that on purpose, but most people don’t even notice it.
That’s not the case with bolder patterns like stripes. You really have to think about how those stripes will run.
On Hank here I made the stripes run horizontally.
On Charlie I chose vertically.
You could use striped fabric on some fish and skip the smaller applique stripes, Like Louis here.
If you wanted to simplify that fish, just skip the purple applique stripes and use a striped fabric set vertically for his body. Easy peasy!
On Angelina I used the stripes to mimic the way a lot of fins have ribs in them, and how the angle of the ribs change – kind of sweeping back as the fish moves through the water.
In both of her fins, the stripes are parallel with the front edge of the fin.
I fully admit that that last example may be overthinking things a bit. 🙂
But I do stand by the notion that when your fabric print is bold, you need to put some thought into how you use it in your applique.
This post is part of a series specifically about working with the Fish pattern. Here are the rest. . .
Want to learn how to make a quilt with an easy online workshop – totally free?
Sign up for Let’s Make a Quilt here. You’ll learn how to get started, the tools and supplies you’ll need, and how to make a quilt from start to finish using Quilt As You Go and applique with fusible adhesive.
It’s the easiest, most fun way to make an applique quilt. You can do it!
That bundle has a darker and lighter shade of each color in the rainbow. That allows me to combine the light and dark for contrast in one fish, like this. . .
Isabella is made with the two shades of green in that bundle.
Even though the fabrics in the two bundles come from different companies, I picked them so that the colors would still work really well together. 🙂
If I was making this for myself – and not as the sample quilt for a pattern – I probably would have also included fabrics from the Dots fat quarter bundle.
Those irregular dots and the crosshatch background would have added another nice texture to the fish – and the colors coordinate well with the other two bundles.
But I try to keep the numbers of fabrics I use in my samples to a minimum because I don’t want anyone to feel like they need to buy a TON of different fabrics to make the quilt work. Fabric is expensive! But if you have some Dots left over from making a Dinosaurs quilt – add them into the mix!
But what if you don’t want to make brightly colored tropical fish? What if you want to make fish that look like what you can pull out of any freshwater lake or stream?
That will give you fish that look trout-tish and bass-ish and perch-ish.
(All of my fish are Ish Fish. The only fish in the quilt that really looks like a very specific type is the angler fish – and even on him I eliminated the exceedingly-scary-looking-very-sharp teeth.)
Which brings me to my final topic while we’re talking about color.
Camouflage.
I designed most of the blocks so there would be a very high contrast between the fish and the background water. I really wanted those fish to pop!
But I made a few be lower contrast. Angler fish (mine is named Kevin) have a very dull, practically invisible body so that all you really see is that glowing lure. I tried to sort of duplicate that (without making him too invisible) by making his body and the background the same darkness of fabric. You can see that really clearly when I switch his photo to black and white.
I added the lighter purple fin to help you spot him a bit, but you could go all dark for a more hidden fish lurking down there.
I chose purple on the blue because they’re in the same color family – both cool – so there’s even less contrast.
(If you want to read more about my normal “rules” for choosing applique fabrics (which I break here for Kevin) check out this post.
So Kevin is the lowest contrast, and most of the blocks are very high contrast, but I added in just a couple of low-ish contrast blocks to help make the overall quilt mimic a bit the look of a school of tropical fish – where some really stand out and some are less noticeable. Like this block where the lighter purple fish blend a bit with the lighter dapples in the background.
These guys appear in another block where they have higher contrast, so it’s only this pair who tend to recede into the background just a bit.
So there you go! That’s how I chose the colors for my fish. I can’t wait to see what you all do! I hope you’ll post photos as you go in the Shiny Happy People Facebook group. It’s awesome to see samples with different fabric choices!
The Fish quilt pattern is finished (you can get it here) and I’m sharing some of the behind-the-scenes design decisions I made for my sample quilt.
Today – quilting the background blocks!
I used a variety of blue batik fabrics and cut all my blocks and batting pieces 11 inches square. They’ll be trimmed down to 10 1/2″ square so that gives me a bit of wiggle room. You can cut yours a little bigger if you like more room for error. 🙂
I usually do different quilting in each block, but for this quilt I decided to use a double wavy line for every block. It gives a nice watery/wavy look that’s perfect for the fish.
You can see how I quilt those wavy lines (no marking!) in this video.
One other change for this quilt is in my choice of quilting thread. I usually match the thread pretty closely to the background fabric, but this time I wanted those waves to stand out a bit more. I chose thread with a little bit of contrast – either darker or lighter blue, and sometimes veering into a blue-green.
Here’s one with slightly lighter thread.
And here’s one with slightly darker thread.And here’s one with some blueish green thread.
It’s subtle – but I like how it adds to the dapply, watery effect.
I don’t like the envelope backs. They’re easy to sew, but they don’t cover the pillow as snugly as I like.
I like zippered covers, so they cover tightly and can be removed for washing – but I don’t like when the zipper is in one of the side seams. They never “sit” the same way as the other seams, so the finished pillow shape is always a little distorted.
I like the zipper to be somewhere in the pillow back (it doesn’t have to be the exact center) but I don’t like it to extend all the way to the edges, because the stiffness of the zipper again can distort the overall look of the pillow.
So here’s how I sew a pillow with a zipper in the back.
I make the cover a little small. If the pillow is 18 inches square, I cut my fabric 18 inches square. When I sew the front to the back using a 1/2 inch seam allowance, the pillow cover ends up 17 inches square – perfect for the nice snug fit I like.
I make the zipper a little short. Specifically – two inches shorter than the cut fabric. So for an 18 inch pillow, I buy a 16 inch zipper.
My daughter doesn’t like using regular rectangular bed pillows. Instead she has an enormous pile of square pillows – mostly with quilted and applique designs on them. 🙂 She doesn’t like the inexpensive “hard” pillow forms. She likes these Fairfield brand Home Elegance pillows. They feel like down pillows, but they’re a LOT less expensive and they’re machine washable. Win!
You can use any quilt block pattern to make a pillow cover.
This post is originally from November 2013. I updated it in July 2017 to add the quilted batik tablet cover I made for my iPad Pro.
The day before I left for Quilt Market I decided that a really efficient use of my time would be to make myself a tablet cover using some of my new patterns. 😛
Here’s the result.
I posted it on Facebook and I got a bunch of requests for a pattern.
How about a free tutorial instead?
First you’ll need to measure your tablet. Of course, they’re all just a little bit different.
Add one inch to each dimension – length and width. This is your cutting size. If your tablet is 8″ x 11″ your cutting size is 9″ x 12″.
Cut four pieces of fabric to your cutting size. Two are for the outside and two are for the lining.
Or just make it out of the most fabulous fabric you can find!
For the new iPad cover, I used a fabulous hand-dyed batik fabric from Malka Dubrawsky of Stitch in Dye and added Big Stitch quilting around all the circles.
These are the tablet cover front and back, all quilted, trimmed to size, and ready to assemble.
Back the outside layers with some thin cotton batting and hold the layers together with some machine quilting (if you didn’t already quilt it as part of your embellishment). For the cat/dog cover, I just followed the line of the zigzags in the fabric. Easy peasy! Since the tablet is lined you don’t even need to back the batting.
So. You’ve cut your pieces, added any fanciness you like, and quilted in some padding. Time to start sewing it all together. This is super easy.
Sew your front to your back, right sides together, using 1/4″ seam allowance. Sew down one side, across the bottom, and up the other side. Don’t forget to backstitch at the beginning and end of your stitching.
Do the same thing with your two lining pieces except leave a 3-4 inch opening in the bottom for turning the whole thing right side out later.
Turn both the outside and the lining right side out and press.
I’ve got my turning stick poked through the opening I left in the lining. See how I pressed that too? That’ll make it a cinch to sew up when you’re done.
Now turn the outside inside out again. Leave the lining right side out.
Measure a strip of elastic 3 inches long. I used soft fold-over elastic in a pretty color but you can really use any elastic in any size or color.
Fold the elastic in half and pin it to the center of the front of your cover. (Fold the cover in half to quickly find the center.)
I like to leave a little extra hanging over the raw edge.
Slip the lining (right side out) inside the cover (inside out). Line up the side seams and pin or clip the layers together around the top. The elastic loop should be sandwiched between the two layers.
You can really see my quilting lines here on the batting.
Sew the outside to the lining all the way around the top using 1/4″ seam allowance.
I go back and forth over the elastic a couple of extra times. It’s a stress spot and I like to reinforce it.
Now comes the fun part.
Pull the lining out of the bag. Then pull the whole thing through the opening in the bottom of the lining. Sew up the opening in the lining using either whipstitch or ladder stitch and tuck the lining down into the bag.
Flip down the elastic loop to see where you need to position your button and sew the button in place.
Done!
Here’s the back of my cover. Of course I had to decorate the back too!
And here’s a full view of the batik cover.
It’s the same font and back. 🙂
Here are several free patterns that work with my basic 10-inch applique squares – no resizing needed!
Here are several free patterns that work with just some simple resizing. This post about making coasters has info about resizing an applique pattern that can be applied to any of these projects.
Every once in a while a fabric company asks me to work with them on a project – usually for a booth at Quilt Market. When it’s the right company and the right project these collaborations can be really fun. Every once in a while lightning strikes and they’re so perfect that it’s almost magical.
Be sure to listen with the sound on for maximum cuteness. 🙂
I’m in the middle of another magical partnership – this time with Michael Miller Fabrics.
Maybe you saw some of their posts tagged #mmfpets during Quilt Market?
I had SO MUCH FUN making these guys!
Did I mention they’re BIG?
Really big.
Each block is about a yard wide!
When Michael Miller approached me about the project and shared a sketch of their booth, I actually squealed out loud. The concept was just so cute!
They had a bunch of BIG paper doll blocks, with outfits made in soon-to-be-released fabric collections. I would be making their pets – also in brand new fabrics. 🙂
It’s so much fun (and feels so sneaky) to play with new fabrics before they’re even released! Here are some of my favorites from this project. Each image links back to the Michael Miller site if you want more info. (Maybe you want to ask your local fabric store to be sure to bring in your favorite.)
So the whole booth concept was super cute, the fabrics were super cute, and their idea to incorporate my applique patterns was super cute. Of course I said yes!
Before I even started the project, I was already thinking of ways that YOU might want to use some big applique patterns. My plan was just to tell you to enlarge the blocks and then make some suggestions for what you could do with those supersized cuties.
But once I got into actually making the blocks, I realized it wasn’t quite as simple as that. It’s still pretty easy – and boy do they come together quickly! But there were a few Problems To Solve and Quirks To Work Out – so I decided to put it all together in a new online workshop.
No – those aren’t miniature scissors. Those are my regular shears, put in there for scale. 🙂
Update – this class is no longer available, but I’m working on bringing many of the lessons over here as free tutorials.
But that’s not all!
Since the purpose of the blocks was to show off new fabrics, I needed to add some extra doodads and accessories for the pets. That way I could incorporate more fabrics!
That was so much fun that I KNEW you guys would want to play too.
I decided to create a new applique pattern with loads of different hats and eyeglasses and bows and mustaches and speech bubbles and more. I just finished my drawings and I’m going to start making up some sample blocks soon so you can see how they work with all the applique patterns you already have.
So there it is. A perfect partnership – one where every step of the process is a joy and takes me in directions I never even thought of – including back to you. Many thanks to Michael Miller Fabrics for making it fun!
Ugh! How on earth do you applique eyes? They’re so small!
The eyes are definitely the trickiest part of any of my applique patterns, but I have several posts that show you easy ways to deal with them!
Applique
I usually applique eyes using solid black fabric. I like the look of it, and (after some practice) I don’t think it’s too tricky to outline those eyes. Plus I use black thread on black fabric so if my line gets wonky, nobody really sees it. 🙂
If you want to applique the eyes but you don’t want to do the outline stitching, use Heat & Bond Ultrahold fusible adhesive.
The Heat & Bond Ultrahold is too stiff for the main applique, but you’ll never notice the stiffness on such small pieces as the eyes.
Careful! If you choose this option, you need to be sure to dry your quilts on a less hot setting. If your dryer gets as hot as the wool setting on your iron, that’s hot enough to re-melt the adhesive and the eyes could come loose.
Machine Embroidery
I’ve got two different posts showing how you can embroider eye shapes by machine.
See? Lots and lots of options for those pesky eyes. 🙂
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.
I’ve had SO MANY people ask how they can use QAYG with sashing. So many!
I don’t usually use sashing (or borders) in my quilts – but for this dinosaur quilt I really wanted them to divide the long panorama-style rows of dinosaur landscapes.
So it’s the perfect opportunity for a video!
I need to clarify one thing up front. This is NOT the sashing you often see in QAYG quilts. In most QAYG with sashing, that sashing is designed to hide the seams between the blocks, and it’s usually pretty skinny (usually maxing out at about an inch wide).
This is more traditional-style sashing (or borders) that you can make any width you like.
It’s done just like adding sashing to a regular quilt – except that you quilt the fabric to the batting before you cut it in strips and sew it to the blocks.
It really is that simple.
Here’s the video showing how. . .
See how easy that is?
You use the exact same method if you want to add borders to your QAYG quilt.
I promised links to a few more helpful videos and tutorials related to this one, and here they are.
There’s a printable download with fabric requirements, cutting guides, and assembly diagrams for quilts (six different sizes) with sashing and borders here.
And that awesome dinosaur skeleton fabric I used for the sashing? Sorry. It’s been discontinued now. 🙁 But the good news is that there’s ALWAYS a great selection of dinosaur fabrics in the world. 🙂
Find links to all the posts about pattern size and layouts here.
