Tools & Materials
1. Applique patterns, collect the patterns and tutorials from the following pages: “Flowers, Leaves and Stems“, “Ladybug, Butterflies and Snails“, “Songbird, Tree and Sun“, and, “Secret Garden Font”
2. Applique fusible web (I used Steam-A-Seam), qty = 20 sheets
3. Sewing Machine that is able to do free motion quilting, ie. with feed dog down or covered (I used Bernina B550 Quilter’s Edition)
4. Darning foot (or Bernina Stitch Regulator, BSR), walking foot, 1/4″ foot
5. Cotton blend batting (at least 64″ x 88″)
6. Polyester high loft batting (approximately half of the batting size)
7. Quilting cotton thread, #50, white, coordinate colors and contrast colors of your choice
8. Quilter Safety pins and/or basting thread
9. Fabric chalk or pencil and ruler
10. Cutting mat
11. Rotary cutter
12. Scissors
13. Iron
14. Printer and papers (letter size, qty= 20)
Fabric Details:
1. White cotton 44″ wide, 4.5 yards
2. Backing fabric, Pink base white polka-dot, 44″ wide 6 yards
3. Edge binder, 2.5″, 9 yard (or use 8 strips from jelly-roll)
4. Applique and square patchwork:
Cut fabric pieces according to the quilt pattern downloaded from the above link. Snip a small cut at the edge of the fabric and tear along the way is always better than cutting by using scissor or rotary cutter. It will give you absolutely straight grain lines by tearing the fabric.
The fabric pieces layout in the quilt pattern is 1″ bigger on each side than the actual size. Use fabric chalk or pencil lightly mark the actual size of all of the panels (on the right side), you may use erasable fabric marker but I find the lines faded away before I piecing up the quilt.
Print out all the appliques as listed above, follow the tutorials and quilt pattern to stick them on the white fabrics that you have cut. Plan your colors and fabrics carefully for the applique, I used 5″ charm pack for larger appliques and sometimes with jelly-roll for smaller pieces.
After you have done with all the appliques, trim the raw edge to have 1/4″ seam allowance, except those at the utmost edges of the quilt.
Piecing up square patchwork.
1. Sew a few strips of jelly rolls next to each other with 1/4″ foot. It doesn’t have to be a fix numbers and colors of strip, just do it as you think will look good, for example, in a group of 3 strips, 4 strips, 5 strips etc…
2. Cut 2 1/2″ across the roll of strip.
3 & 4. Mix and match each set with others and sew with 1/4″ foot to make up the boxed borders and top panel of the quilt.
Full assembly of the front quilt after sewing all the pieces together.
Full assembly of the back quilt after sewing all the pieces together.
The pink/white polka-dot backing is joint by 3 pieces of panels, sides are 10″ each and the center is 42″.
Now, sandwich the cotton blend batting in between the front and back pieces.
Align the backing to the front so that the 2 vertical joining lines are on the outer seam lines of the first square patchwork boxed border (the one next to the center panel). Baste them together along the lines.
Pin or baste the rest of the area.
Sew the 2 vertical lines with walking foot. I noticed that this method is difficult to get a perfect alignment, so I tried another method when I did my son’s blanket. That second method is to baste the center piece of the backing to the batting and front quilt, then add and sew the two side panels follow by the top banner. I will do a more detail tutorial when I share my son’s “Road Runner” Quilt.
Here comes the interesting and challenging part, Free Motion Quilting!!!! This quilt is huge, so you need to do it section by section by rolling the quilt up to cater for the arm space of the sewing machine.
Change your presser foot to darning foot or BSR, lower your feed dog or cover it up.
Needle down and up to bring the lower thread up to the surface, make a few stitches on the same spot to lock the stitch. Always perform this when you start a new quilting route.
Quilt an outline just outside the appliques with white #50 quilting thread.
Continue to quilt the rest of the white areas with loopy lines (click to see the video by Leah Day) except the utmost white border. If this is your first time, practice with a 4″ swatch before quilting.
The utmost border is quilted in 1″ spacing straight lines.
Stitch in the ditch for the square patchwork boxed border, then quilt a smaller square (1 1/2″ x 1 1/2″) in alternate squares.
Hide all thread ends into the quilt or you can trim them away.
Trim the borders of the quilt to 62″ (W) x 86″ (L) or 2 inches on the white borders and the squares of the patchwork.
Prepare a 2 1/2″ binder strips by joining 8 jelly-roll strip to make up approximately 9 yard long.
Fold the strip into half (1 1/4″) and iron.
1. Align the raw edges of the folded binder to the quilt edge, sew with walking foot of 1/4″ seam allowance around (refer the picture below for mitered corner).
2. Stop at about 2 1/2″ away from the beginning.
3. Mark the joining distance and sew to join the binder strip together. Trim away excess.
4. Continue to sew the binder on the edge.
These are the steps to sew mitered corners for the binding.
1. Stop at 1/4″ before you reach the end of the edge, perform back stitching to secure the stitches.
2. Flip the strip up vertically to form a 45° angle.
3. Flip it down again with a horizontal fold align to the top edge. Align the binder strip to the next corner of raw edge.
4. Sew from the top raw edge down. Repeat the same at every corner.
Fold the binder over to the other side and stitch along the previous sewing lines. I like to hand sewn this side as it gives a perfectly nice and clean seam line, though it took me a day to slip stitch the binder of the whole quilt but it is worth the effort when you see the end result.
That’s it, you have got the beautiful quilt finished. I have spent months to get it done bit by bit with lots of interruptions while getting my house designed interiorly, renovated, touch up and moving! I think I could do it within a month if I am focused enough! Bravo!
