| For this small quilt we used the designs Thumbelina
and the green frog from the Frogs
set. The finished size of this wall quilt is 21" x 23". |
|
| You will need a fat quarter of pale blue fabric for the central panel.
It can be a batik, hand-dye, marble or even patterned fabric. For the borders
you will need 1.5" wide strips of blue and green fabrics in different shades,
from pale to dark. |
| You will also need scraps of fabric for the appliqué, fabric
for the backing and binding, batting and Steam-A-Seam2 fusible web for
the appliqué. |
| Step One: Trim the fat quarter for the central part to a rectangle
measuring 17 1/2" x 19 1/2". |
| Step Two: In order to make the checkered borders, cut green
and blue fabrics into 1 1/2" wide strips. Combine them in pairs. We grouped
pale green with pale blue (for the side borders), medium green with medium
blue and dark green with dark blue (for the lower border), and medium blue
with pale blue (for the top border). |
| Stitch these pairs together. Press. Then cut into smaller strips measuring
1 1/2" wide. You will need 80 such strips. It doesn't really matter how
many strips of each color combination you have. |
|
| Step Three: On the table, arrange the pieces into borders around
the central part: the left and the right borders consist of 19 pieces each,
the upper and bottom borders consist of 21 pieces each. |
| Arrange the dark green-blue and medium green-blue pieces along the
bottom, the medium blue and pale blue pieces at the top, and the medium
green-blue and pale green-blue on the left and on the right. |
| Now join the small strips together for borders. First, join the 19
pieces of the left border and the 19 pieces of the right border. Then join
the 21 pieces of the upper border and the 21 pieces of the lower border.
Press all the borders. |
|
| Attach the left and right borders to the central part. Press. Then,
attach the top and bottom borders to the central part. Press again. |
|
| Step Four: Out of paper, cut templates for the water-lily leaves
and flowers. Cut ovals of different sizes. They do not need to be perfect
ovals. Trim some ovals into lily flowers. When you're satisfied with your
paper templates, place the scraps of fabric for the appliqué onto
the Steam-A-Seam2 sheet. Follow the directions of the manufacturer to cut
out applique pieces based on your templates. |
|
| When your fabric shapes are ready, arrange them on the quilt top. |
|
| Step Five: From your embroidery software, print out screenshots
of the designs. Use them to decide where exactly you would like to place
the embroidery. At this point, you can re-arrange the position of the appliqué
and embroidery on the quilt top. When you are satisfied, sat aside the
paper templates and press the appliqué shapes with a hot iron. The
web will fuse and bond the appliqué to the top. |
|
| Step Six: Hoop the top with craft felt or DreamPoly low loft
batting. It will work as a stabilizer. Embroider the Thumbelina
design. With sharp scissors cut away the excess felt as close to the embroidewry
as possible.
Repeat for the Frog
design. |
|
| This is the right side of the embroidery. |
 |
| When the embroidery was finished, we felt that we need more pink in
our design. Thus the pink water-lily was added. |
|
| Step Seven: After the embroidery is finished, press the top,
add the batting and backing, pin all three layers together and start quilting.
Quilt with matching threads starting from the center. We free-motioned
the applique parts and imitated ripples on the rest of the quilt. |
| Press the quilt with steam. Square. Finish the raw edges. For the binding,
we used the 2 1/2" wide strips of fabrics we used in the quilt. |
|
| We hope that you liked our idea and will come up with many of your
own. |
|
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