BLOG: Quilt Tutorials

Hand Quilting – Stitch to the Very Edge of Your Quilt

February 19, 2016

Hand Quilting - how to quilt all the way to the edge

When you’re hand quilting in a hoop, how do you quilt all the way to the edge?

This is a question I’ve gotten several times in the last few weeks since I posted this video about hand quilting and this one about big stitch quilting.

It’s a good question, and the answer goes all the way back to one of my earliest videos – this one about how to layer and baste a quilt.

In that video I showed how the batting layer needs to be bigger all around than the top layer, and the backing needs to be bigger than the batting.

One of the main reasons for that is because – even with basting – the fabric layers can shift a bit when you’re quilting. If you start with all the edges perfectly lined up, you can have a situation where the batting or backing shifts to be smaller than the top – and then you have a problem on your hands.

The other reason to have the other layers be longer is so that you can hoop it up for hand quilting and stitch right up to the edges.

Let’s take a look at my current hand quilting project – the Controlled Chaos quilt. (It’s a free pattern.)

I’m working on one of the edges here.

You can see that the quilt edge is the edge of that narrow grey border around the blue block. It’s mostly quilted here – right up to the edge.

The batting extends beyond that edge – enough to be captured in the square frame I use so it gets held tight for quilting.

The backing is the grey fabric that extends beyond the batting – also held in the frame.

Having the batting and backing layers extend several inches past the edge of the quilt allows me to hoop them up with the actual quilt still within the quiltable area of the frame. Everything is held nice and tight for easy hand quilting.

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.

How to Tie a Knot
Hand Quilting Basics – traditional hand quilting
Hand Quilting without Marking
Big Stitch Quilting
How to Quilt All the Way to the Edge

Finished with this topic?

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

Move on to the lessons about binding and finishing your quilt.

Happy quilting!

Colorful quilt featuring adorable dog appliqué patterns for making plush dog toys.

Everything You Need to Know About How to Applique

February 8, 2016

Bright blue quilt with an owl applique and instructional text about applique techniques.

This one post will give you all the links you need to get to all of my different posts (and there are a lot of them) about how to applique. I love applique!

First, there are three major applique techniques.

Needle Turn Applique

This is beautiful and soft and lovely – but it’s a hand technique so it’s sloooooow. It’s still doable though! My very first quilt was enormous and full of needle turn applique.

This video shows how to applique with the needle turn technique.

You can see my first quilt here. 🙂

The only tools you need are a washable marker and a needle and thread.

Freezer Paper Applique

This is also beautiful and soft and lovely, but it’s a machine technique so it’s much faster than needle turn.

There are four videos for this technique, because you use different techniques for different shapes. I’m listing them here in order from easiest to hardest.

Those points can be a real bear and lead to burned fingers. 🙁

You’ll need freezer paper. I also think it’s handy to have some spray starch.

Applique with Fusible Adhesive

This is my favorite way to applique! It’s fast, fun, easy, and durable.

If you want to give this method a try, I recommend signing up for Let’s Make a Quilt!

Bright quilt with playful dog applique perfect for beginners sewing projects.

It’s a free online video class and you can use any pattern you like as you work through the lessons.

Or you can use the links below to jump to any tutorials you need.

There’s a photo tutorial here showing how, and there’s a video tutorial here showing the same thing.

There are lots of different brands of fusible adhesive. My favorite is Heat & Bond. I use the Lite weight for all my quilts. There’s also a super strong version called Ultrahold that is a nice option for tiny eyes and other small pieces you might not want to have to sew.

Speaking of sewing – this post has info about how to stitch around the pieces – especially how to figure out what order to stitch in.

I usually sew around my pieces with a simple straight stitch, but some people prefer to use a zigzag or satin stitch. This video has some tips for zigzag stitching the edges.

I get a lot of questions from people asking how durable the applique is if you just use straight stitching. I answer that here – showing some close-up photos of a quilt that my daughter has been using for some time now. That means it’s been washed and dried a lot. 🙂

If you want a thicker line with that straight stitch, you can just use a thicker thread. Easy peasy! I show some samples here. This is the thread I use for a thicker line.

This post has tips for stitching around small pieces, like eyes and noses.

Applique Extras

You can add fun 3D bits to your applique – ears or tongues that are flappy, hair that dangles, etc. This post has more info.

It’s fun to play with with faux fur – but you can’t use fusible adhesive for that because it will melt the fur. Here’s how to applique a faux fur piece. And here’s how to applique regular fabric (like eyes or a mouth) onto a fur background.

Finally – here’s a fun post about how to turn any drawing, embroidery pattern or clip art into an applique pattern using fusible adhesive. This is such a fun way to use a child’s art!

Quilting

One more thing! You’ll notice in a lot of the videos that I quilt my blocks first and then add the applique over the quilted block. It’s so easy this way! You can see a gallery of my favorite designs (with instructions) here.

I hope you have fun trying out some of these techniques! It allows you to achieve certain shapes in your quilts that you just can’t get with piecing. Plus it’s incredibly easy and fun! You can see all of my quilt patterns here and there are some free quilt patterns to play around with here.

Happy stitching!

Big Stitch Quilting – an Easy and Fun Hand Quilting Technique

February 3, 2016

Big Stitch Quilting - a video tutorial from Shiny Happy World

It’s finally here! The video showing you how I do big stitch quilting – a super easy and fun hand quilting technique!

Big stitch quilting is my new favorite way to hand quilt – I’m not sure I’ll ever go back to traditional hand quilting. It’s just so much fun! I love the chunkiness of the stitches – and the style really seems to demand the kind of slight irregularities and wonkiness I love so much.

I should note – I’m not trying to be irregular here. I find that if I try to stitch a perfectly straight line, going slowly and carefully, but not actually marking or measuring it in any way – I get just the amount of wonkiness and wobbliness that makes me happy. It looks like it was sewn by human hands. 🙂

Here’s the video. . .

And here’s some additional info for you. . .

A review of the Sulky Petites thread I’m using for the big stitch quilting.
This post has links to sources for all my favorite tools and supplies, including that thread, my favorite needles and that Q-Snap quilting frame.
The Controlled Chaos quilt (a free pattern) that you’ve been watching me quilt on Facebook and Instagram.
There’s a video here showing how I position everything when I do hand quilting on the couch.

I’ve also got this fun class that teaches several ways to use Big Stitch Quilting.

Big Stitches and Patchy Patchwork - an online video class from Shiny Happy World

I think you all are going to have so much fun with this big stitch quilting! Enjoy making those big chunky stitches!

Here are all my posts about layering and basting your quilt, and the final round of quilting.

How to Tie a Knot
Hand Quilting Basics – traditional hand quilting
Hand Quilting without Marking
Big Stitch Quilting
How to Quilt All the Way to the Edge

Finished with this topic?

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

Move on to the lessons about binding and finishing your quilt.

Hand Quilting without Marking – video tutorial

January 27, 2016

Hand Quilting without Marking - a video tutorial from Shiny Happy World

In this video I show how to do more intricate hand quilting without marking.

I get really nervous about marking on my quilts.

Temporary markers (like water-soluble pens) disappear quickly in the humidity here.

Chalk marks disappear quickly in the time a quilt gets moved around on my sofa while I quilt it.

And the idea of marking on my quilts with anything permanent gives me the willies.

So pretty much as soon as I started quilting, I started looking for ways to do it without marking on my quilt at all. 🙂

In this video I show you the two techniques I use over and over again.

I use painters tape as a guide for all straight lines. Those can be parallel lines, squares, diamonds, stars – anything made of straight lines.

For curves I cut the shape out of felt and stitch along the edge.

Easy peasy!

Here are all my posts about layering and basting your quilt, and the final round of quilting.

How to Tie a Knot
Hand Quilting Basics – traditional hand quilting
Hand Quilting without Marking
Big Stitch Quilting
How to Quilt All the Way to the Edge

Finished with this topic?

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

Move on to the lessons about binding and finishing your quilt.

Happy quilting!

How to Hand Quilt – video

January 22, 2016

A close-up of hand sewing stitches on fabric for quilting basics.

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.

There’s a post with links to sources for all my favorite supplies (including that square frame) here.

There’s a video here showing how I position everything when I do hand quilting on the couch.

Here are all my posts about layering and basting your quilt, and the final round of quilting.

How to Tie a Knot
Hand Quilting Basics – traditional hand quilting
Hand Quilting without Marking
Big Stitch Quilting
How to Quilt All the Way to the Edge

Finished with this topic?

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

Move on to the lessons about binding and finishing your quilt.

Happy stitching!

Quilting the Controlled Chaos Quilt

December 15, 2015

I’ve been having so much fun quilting the Controlled Chaos scrap quilt. 🙂

I’m doing some big stitch quilting and I love the way it looks and the texture it adds!

I’ve got a series of hand quilting videos.

basic hand quilting
quilting without marking
big stitch quilting (what I’m doing for this quilt and what you see in that photo)

You can find all the old posts about this quilt – including a tutorial for each block and how to add the sashing – here.

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

How to Add Sashing to a Quilt

December 2, 2015

Vibrant quilt blocks with colorful sashing for sewing and quilting projects.

(This post is about adding sashing to a regular quilt. Click here for specific instructions about adding sashing to a Quilt As You Go quilt.)

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.

Colorful quilt blocks with vibrant patterns and textures for children’s crafting projects.

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.

Colorful quilt block patterns made from various fabric squares and strips.

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!

Colorful pixel art quilt patterns, vibrant and playful quilt designs for kids and beginners.

Now layer, baste, quilt and bind as usual.

Here’s mine, all basted and ready for quilting.

Colorful patchwork quilt made from various fabric squares, displayed on a flat surface.

I’m going to hand quilt this with big stitches and fat thread. I can’t wait to get started!

You can see all the posts about the Controlled Chaos scrap quilt here.

Find links to all the posts about pattern size and layouts here.

Quilt Sizes and Supplies Needed

Play with Your Layouts – Multiple Possibilities for One Quilt Pattern

Sashing

How to Make Applique Bust Out of Its Frame

Alternate or Broken Grid layouts (adding half and double blocks)

How to Make an Applique Rag Quilt

How to Make a Polaroid Quilt

How to Make a Wonky Churn Dash Frame for Any Block

Finished with this topic?

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

Move on to the lessons about choosing your fabric.

Happy quilting!

How Durable is Applique with Fusible Adhesive?

October 8, 2015

Bright colorful stitched cat applique on blue fabric with playful embroidery details.

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.

How Durable is Straight Stitching on Appliqué?

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.

One more note – all of this is assuming you’re using the right weight adhesive. I use Heat-n-Bond Lite for my quilts. You can see the results of my fusible adhesive testing here.

Do you like that cat face? It’s one of the blocks in the Cuddly Cats quilt pattern. 🙂

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.

How to Applique with Fusible Adhesive – a very basic intro
How Durable is Applique with Fusible Adhesive?
Fusible Applique the Easy Way – the way I currently work – use with any of my patterns that include SVG files
How to Use a Light Box to Layer Your Applique – perfect placement every time
How to Applique with Fusible Adhesive – photo tutorial – use with any of my patterns that do not include SVG files
How to Applique with Fusible Adhesive – video tutorial – use with any of my patterns that do not include SVG files
How to Window Cut Fusible Adhesive – if you’re worried about stiffness

Here are links to special posts about eyes.

Easy Eye Options for Applique
Using Fabric Markers and Paints for Small Eyes
Free Embroidery Machine Files for Machine-Stitched Eyes
How to Machine Stitch Eyes without an Embroidery Machine
How to Minimize Show-Through on White Eyes
How to Applique Dark Eyes on Dark Faces
How to Add Catchlights to Eyes
How to Change the Eyes on Your Applique Patterns (adding lashes or changing to sleepy or smiling 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.

Creating an Applique Pattern from a Drawing or Clip Art

September 10, 2015

Colorful embroidered dragon illustration for applique pattern.

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.

Applique dinsoaurs from an embroidery pattern in the book Stitch Love by Mollie Johanson

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.

Cute bear illustration for kids' sewing and embroidery projects.

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.

Playful bear outline for kids coloring and crafts.

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?

Cute bear coloring page for children’s activities.

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. . .

Adorable bear embroidery pattern for beginners, perfect for pillows and quilts.

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.

Cute bear illustration for kids' craft projects, featuring a waving bear design.

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!

Read my review of Mollie’s Stitch Love. It’s packed full of seriously adorable critter patterns and you could make a super cute quilt out of them!

Let’s look at one more example – this one of a child’s drawing.

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.

Hand-drawn dragon illustration for kids, featuring a princess character; playful children's artwork.

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.

Colorful embroidered plush dragon quilt block for kids' craft projects and sewing patterns.

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!

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

Happy stitching!

You Can Stitch Your Child’s Drawings!

September 4, 2015

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. 🙂

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Needle Turn Applique

Freezer Paper Applique

Applique with Fusible Adhesive

Applique Extras

Quilting

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