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.
Learn how to hand quilt. It’s easy, relaxing, and goes faster than you think it will.
In this video you’ll learn all the basics of hand quilting – from the tools you need to the mechanics of how to do the stitch. There are two methods you’ll see people use – stabbing and rocking. I’m a rocker – gathering up several stitches with each pass of the needle.
Some people are very concerned with the number of stitches per inch. As I mentioned in the video – I am not. 🙂
If you want to get smaller stitches, work towards it gradually. This stitch feels awkward the first time you try it – and it’s even more awkward if you’re using a very tiny needle. I recommend starting with a pack of needles that includes several sizes. Start with the largest and work with that until you feel comfortable, then start moving to smaller and smaller needles – sticking with each size until you feel comfortable with it. When you’re happy with the length of your stitches – stay with that needle size.
Here are all my posts about layering and basting your quilt, and the final round of quilting.
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.
I don’t usually add sashing or borders to my quilts, but Controlled Chaos isn’t a typical quilt for me. I went back and forth for a long time, debating the need for sashing. Sashing finally won for two reasons. . .
I like that each little block is its own composition. In some ways I liked those compositions blending into each other and creating new shapes, but ultimately I decided I like the look of a little frame around each piece.
The thought of matching all those seams (necessary if I went without sashing) made me weep.
So – sashing it is!
Adding sashing isn’t hard – just think of it as another skinny block between each of the bigger blocks. Skip the border (for now) and just think about the strips in the quilt’s interior.
We’ll start with adding the vertical strips.
I decided to make the sashing strips the same width as one finished square in the block. I think that’s a good general guideline for balance. That meant cutting them 2″ wide. If you used 1/4″ seam allowance for your sewing, the finished blocks should be 15.5″ square, so cut 15 strips each 2″ wide x 15.5″ long.
Start assembling the rows of your quilt by alternating blocks with sashing strips. Here’s one row.
Repeat until you have all five rows.
One quick tip. The problem most people have when adding sashing is that the strip is the wrong length by the time they get to the end of the line of stitching. The longer the seam, the more likely (and worse) the problem is.
Using a walking foot when you sew will help prevent this, but the best way is good old-fashioned pinning.
Start by folding your strip in half and marking the center with a pin.
Match the center of the strip to the center of the block and pin.
Match the ends of the strip with the edges of the block and pin.
Fill in the rest of the length with pins until it’s all secure and evenly distributed.
Sew the seam.
Your strip and your block should still be perfectly lined up when you get to the end of the seam.
I wrote a whole post about what I call “Divide and Conquer” for pinning long seams here.
End tip. 🙂
Now you need to sew all five rows together with strips in between them, plus strips at the top and bottom for those borders.
Cut those strips 2″ wide x 65″ wide. You’ll need six.
When you sew your rows together, it should look something like this.
Use that same pinning tip to keep everything lined up.
All you need now are the final strips for the side borders. Cut them 2″ wide x 84.5″ long. You’ll need two.
Sew those strips to the sides and your quilt top is finished!
How durable is applique with fusible adhesive? I get that question a LOT. People really want to know if it’s really ok to just straight stitch around the edges of the pieces in applique with fusible adhesive. People worry that they have to zigzag to make everything durable.
The best way to answer that is with a picture!
This is a close up of one of the cats on the quilt I made for my daughter almost two years ago. She uses it all the time – usually on her bed, but also dragged to sleepovers and occasional stints in the yard. I have no idea how many times it’s been through the washer and dryer – but it’s definitely been washed a LOT.
Look how great it still looks! There’s just a tiny bit of fraying on the edges. A very tiny bit.
This is mostly because the quality of the fabric is excellent. The fabrics that you buy in independently owned quilt shops are better quality than just about anything you can get at a Joann’s or a Hancocks, which is itself higher quality than what you get at a discount store like Walmart. A higher thread count and tighter weave makes for less fraying – and a more durable quilt overall.
If you’re using good quality fabric, you can definitely use a simple straight stitch around the edges with no worries.
One note – if you’re using flannel – even an excellent quality flannel – the small amount of fraying will be more visible because it will be white, so you might want to zigzag those edges as an artistic choice. But as far as durability goes – you’re good.
In 2022 I started using my own fabric designs from Spoonflower for all my quilts.
(It’s so much fun using fabrics I designed especially for applique – and knowing those designs won’t go out of print in a few months!)
Before I started using it, I (of course) needed to know how durable is applique with fusible adhesive when the fabric is Spoonflower fabric? I did what I always do – extensive testing to see how it frayed. You can see the results here. I use the Petal Signature Cotton for my background blocks because it’s a little less expensive, and I use the Organic Cotton Sateen for my applique pieces because it just about doesn’t fray at all, and the colors are a smidge brighter.
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 received a few questions lately about whether it’s possible to create an applique pattern from a drawing or clip art.
Yes!
You can create an applique pattern from just about any drawing – but you may have to do a bit of tweaking to the drawing.
Let’s take a look at this appliqué I did of a pattern from Mollie Johanson’s fabulous embroidery book Stitch Love.
This dinosaur was perfect because all the shapes that make up the image are already enclosed shapes. There are no “dead end lines.”
What’s a dead end line?
That’s what I call lines that end in the middle of nowhere – not making an enclosed shape.
See this sweet bear from Mollie’s book? Lots of dead end lines! I circled them all in red.
Mollie designed him for embroidery where dead end lines don’t matter. But let’s imagine the second you saw him you knew he would be perfect appliquéd on a pillow for your son (who you call Buddy Bear).
You can do it!
Just because it was designed for embroidery doesn’t mean you can’t appliqué this adorable bear. It just means it’s going to require that tweaking I mentioned. 🙂
I chose this bear because he needs a lot of different kinds of tweaks. Let’s start with the easiest – the dead end lines at his ears.
You can see where I “erased” the lines that extend into his head. The ears stick out enough to still be clearly ears, so that works. But what about those cute inner ears?
No erasing for them – I added the red lines to enclose them into cut-outable shapes. Also not hard – and I don’t feel like it interferes with the integrity of the drawing, so I’m ok with it.
Things start getting a little trickier with the arms. We’ll start with the bent arm. . .
For that one I re-drew the lines to extend them both to the edge of the body, making that arm a separate piece that would lay over the body piece. (I’d do it neater in real life because I wouldn’t be trying to draw with my mouse.)
Finally – that waving arm. That’s definitely the hardest bit. I experimented with erasing and drawing, but so much of the arm overlaps the body that erasing that top line really blurs/distorts the shape. It made it look like that arm was growing out of the side of his head!
What I finally did was actually cut that arm out and move it farther outside the body so that there’s less overlap.
See? I had to do a little erasing/adding to clean things up, but I think works well – again without messing up the look too much of the original drawing. He’s still immediately recognizable as a Wild Olive creation. That face!
When I stitched up my daughter Jo’s drawing of a dragon and a princess, it required very little tweaking.
Here’s the original drawing.
I would have been tempted to turn the head/neck/body/tail into one piece, but she had broken it into three pieces in her drawing, so I left it that way to keep the look the same. All I really did was “flesh out” the feet a little bit so there was green fabric behind the toes.
I also made all the back ridges one loooong piece. They’re all connected at the bottom, where the piece tucks behind the neck/body/tail. That didn’t change the look of the drawing, but it sure made the assembly of the appliqué a lot easier. 🙂
So there you go! A few tips to help you convert just about any drawing into an appliqué pattern.
Here’s a list of links all about choosing a quilt pattern – and even designing your own!
Did you know that once you’ve got the basics of appliqué under your belt, you can appliqué anything? Including your child’s awesome drawings?
You can!
This is one of Jo’s drawings.
I never put a date on it, so I don’t know exactly how old she was when she drew it, but it’s in a sketchbook full of lots of similar gems – and a lot of random scribbles. 🙂
I enlarged it just a bit (so it would fit nicely into a standard 8″ x 10″ frame) and then I used all my basic fusible appliqué techniques to make a stitched version. This required no special skills, materials or techniques.
I left a little extra for pieces to tuck under other pieces – just like in my regular appliqué patterns.
I held the picture up to a window to trace all the line work (the words and the princess’s stick body) and then stitched over those lines with my sewing machine – just like I do the faces for my regular appliqué patterns.
If you can make any of my quilts, you can do this!
You could just watch this free video tutorial and jump into it – especially if your child’s drawings are fairly simple shapes.
If you’re a little nervous about that, or if the drawings are more complex, I recommend making one of my quilts or taking my Craftsy class first. That way you’ll have a bit more of a grounding in the techniques. That experience will help you make good design decisions – like what overlaps what, when to use stitching and when to use appliqué.
It’s super fun – and your kids will be thrilled to see what you do with their work!
Appliqué it to a T-shirt or tote bag for school. Make a pillow for Grandma – holidays are coming up soon! Add a drawing to a receiving blanket for a new baby brother or sister. Put a whole bunch of drawings together into a magnificent quilt! The sky’s the limit. 🙂
Did you know you can use a standard sewing machine to machine stitch eyes on your applique blocks?
You can!
The eyes are often the most difficult part of any of my appliqué patterns.
It can be tricky stitching around those small pieces!
(Tips – shorten your stitch length, go sloooooooooow, raise your presser foot often to spin the piece in tighter turns.)
But with the new Paper Doll Quilt I have reached new lows in tiny eyes.
These eyes are too small to appliqué. Don’t even try it.
So what to do?
You have a few options for the Paper Dolls quilt.
1. You can draw on the eyes with a marker. This is totally ok to do! But please test your marker first – and test it on every fabric you’ll be using because the results can vary. For bigger eyes (like all my animal quilts) I like my Marvy fabric markers. For smaller eyes like these paper dolls I get the best results with a small Sharpie. The worst bleeding I’ve ever had was with official “laundry” markers – go figure. (I share my favorite markers and paints here.)
2. You can embroider the eyes by hand.I really like this stitch for eyes. If you’re using Quilt As You Go you won’t even need to worry about a visible thread carry between the eyes because the batting should completely block it – even with a light color background block and skin color.
3. You can machine stitch the eyes. By machine! And you don’t need an embroidery machine, though it will need to have some fancy stitch options.
I’ve heard from a lot of you who have arthritis and appreciate as many machine options as possible – so I think a lot of you are really going to like this method. I loved it!
Here’s how I did mine. . .
Scroll through your decorative stitches and find one that is a series of round or oval satin stitches.
On my Bernina it’s stitch #407. My much-less-fancy Pfaff has an identical stitch #26. Most machines with decorative stitches will have something like this.
Now comes the slightly tedious part. Start playing around with the length and width of the stitch until you find one that’s right for your project. Once you find the settings you like – write them down! I actually make a little sample of the stitch on white fabric and write the settings directly on the fabric.
I stitched up one eye and made a note of the stitch number, the length and the width. See how this matches the settings on the screen above? Now I can make eyes all the same size whenever I want – and skip the playing around with settings step. 🙂
I have a whole stack of these swatches for any decorative stitch I think I might possibly use again.
When you’re ready to machine stitch eyes, you’re all set!
Check to make sure your bobbin is full. You don’t want to run out in the middle of an eye.
Put your block in the sewing machine and carefully lower the needle right into the top of the eye.
Lower the presser foot.
Stitch one oval. Watch carefully and stop stitching when it gets to the bottom of the oval. Backstitch just a stitch or two and remove it.
One eye done! Pause to admire the neat (easy!) stitching and be excited that we live in a time when such wonders are possible. 🙂
Repeat for the second eye.
Troubleshooting tips. . .
The combination of fusible adhesive and batting behind the block makes a great stabilizer. If you’re not using those (of if you find the fabric is bunching up under your eyes) use a stabilizer behind your stitching. It can be as simple as layering a piece of tissue paper behind the block. You might also need to adjust your tension.
Don’t push or pull or hold back the fabric going through the machine. You really need to just let it go through on its own or you might find that you are making the eyes longer or shorter than what the stitch really should be – and it will be nearly impossible to match every time. Just let those feed dogs do their thing. 🙂
That’s it!
The examples in the post are from the Paper Dolls quilt pattern – but you can use this method to machine stitch eyes any time the eyes are really tiny. In the cover image for the Peekaboo Mouse pattern you can see I used applique eyes on the cat, and machine stitched eyes on the little mice.
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 it is! The very last block in the Controlled Chaos scrap quilt!
What You’ll Need
52 two-inch squares in color A (shown in purple)
48 two-inch squares in color B (shown in green)
Instructions
Use 1/4″ seam allowances for all sewing.
Press all the seams as you go. I’m pressing mine open for this quilt. I think it will make things simpler in the end.
Arrange your squares according to the diagram below.
For this block I worked in big chunks. I sewed things up in the following order. . .
Sew all your individual squares into pairs of matching colors. You should have 26 purple pairs and 24 green pairs.
Sew the purple pairs into 2 x 2 squares.
Pull out four of those purple squares. Sew two green pairs to opposite sides of each purple square. Sew the remaining green pairs into eight 1 x 4 rectangles.
Sew these rectangles to the top and bottom of your purple squares, so that there’s a green ring around each of the four purple squares.
Sew the rest of your purple squares into one 2×10 rectangle and two 2 x 4 rectangles.
Sew a 2 x 4 purple rectangle between two purple/green squares. Repeat with the last 2 x 4 purple rectangle and the last two purple/green squares
Assemble your chunks in rows and sew the long 2 x 10 purple rectangle between your other two rows.
Finished!
Well – finished with the blocks. 🙂 I still need to join them all together with sashing strips between them and then quilt the whole thing. Here’s what it’s going to look like. . .
I’ll have a tutorial showing how to do the sashing strips (there’s a little trick to that!) and then tutorials showing basic hand quilting, quilting without marking, and big stitch hand quilting. Yes – I’m going to spend the winter hand-quilting this beauty!
But all of that is going to have to wait just a little bit. I have a new and improved website that I’m really close to launching, so that’s taking a lot of my attention behind the scenes these days. It’ll be worth it! While you wait – finish all your blocks!
Remember – you don’t have to make your quilt the same size or number of blocks as my quilt. You can make fewer quilts for a crib size, or repeat some of the designs in different colors (or make up your own additions!) for a larger quilt. Mine is going to be just the right size for curling up on the couch. 🙂
People get stumped when it’s time to outline applique designs – and the more complicated the block, the more likely I am to get questions about how to approach that outline stitching.
Where to start?
There’s no right or wrong way – as long as you outline each piece, you’re good. But I do like to have all my lines connect (just like they would in a drawing) and I have a system that I use.
This system works for any block, using any pattern – but I’ll go over the specifics using this quilt block as an example. I loaded it up big. If you click on it you should get a larger version of the image so you can really zoom in on the details.
Here’s the order I used to outline applique pieces. . .
Start with all the pieces on top – that is, not overlapped by any other pieces:
hair
belt
shoes
Stitch all the way around each piece, then work your way out from those pieces:
dress top
arms
dress bottom
legs
face
As long as you always start with the pieces on top, you’ll always have lines to connect to. The best example of that in this block is the outlining of the face. The sides of the face tuck under the hair, and the sides of the neck tuck under the dress. So make sure the hair and the dress are stitched before you do the face and you’ll always have lines to connect to.
If you like that sample block that I used in this post – it’s part of the Paper Dolls quilt pattern. You get pages and pages of templates for different hair and outfits. It’s so much fun to mix and match them into your own designs!
Here are links to all my posts about outline stitching.
