Howdy……. Normally I do not post on a Wednesday. But today, I want to show off my finish from last week (I was going to show you in my usual end of week post, but that draft is getting too long already). So I have split my ravings into two doses this week. I hope you don’t mind…..
Anyway, do you remember last week I was madly trying out some trapunto as homework for my local Handi Quilter club? Well, I was. I chose to play with a free design from Geta’s Quilting Studio, that you can access too if you wish. Then I added a heap of FMQ as decoration and practice. And then I ran out of time. But it is now trimmed and bound and hung. Voila!
Dream Big mini quilt stuck directly on the wall
I bound it by machine and it was a bit of a rush job. I probably will refrain from doing that again. But I have just found out we need to head overseas for work for a couple of weeks and I have committed to a fair few too many things between now and then. So, in the belief that finished is better than perfect, it is done. Apart from NOT needing any more UFOs, there are two other reasons why I wanted this finished. The first is, that I wanted to try hanging a quilt with these:
Just so you know, I have no relationship with 3M/Command. I’m just exploring my world and sharing with you as I see fit.
These are adhesive velcro-like strips that clip together and stick to your wall and your picture. I have used 3M brand hooks for a long time, and always have found them to perform very well, so when someone mentioned to me that they use them to hang quilts, I was intrigued. To be honest, also a little bit skeptical. I was not sure that the adhesive strips would hold that well to fabric…. and what of the long term consequences to the quilt? Best to test it out on something not too precious.
Hanging the “Dream Big” mini
So “Dream Big” was always going to be my test piece for this experiment. I added one strip to each corner. In theory, the weight of this quilt probably only needs 1 or 2 strips, but one in each corner will keep it flush to the wall. And I want to pin my show ribbons to it as a display. So over time it should increase in weight! How’s that for optimism!! hahahaha. Please don’t think I am being conceited…… I am currently laughing quite hard….. 🙂 Accumulation of dust is likely the bigger hazard! “Dream Big” is a reminder to myself about sticking with this blog, and believing in my husband’s humanitarian goals, not show quilting.
Anyway, to begin with, the adhesive didn’t seem to bond very well with the Dream Big quilt. But the strips have been on there for four days now, and I have to admit, they are feeling pretty firmly stuck now. I have even become game enough to add two ribbons… the one I got from the local show this year and a second place I won in 2014.
Dream Big is now my ribbon display quilt.
No hanging gap.
I’ll let you know if it comes crashing down. In which case, I will be opting to use hanging corner pockets on my mini quilts instead. But I do like how this hanging method leaves the quilt completely flush against the wall. And the instant gratification of quilt onto wall works for me as well!
Have you ever tried these hooks, or a similar product on a quilt? How do they perform over time?
I am linking this post up with Amy’s Creative Side for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival. It’s the first time I have participated in this and I’m quite excited….. this is the upside of being a brand new blogger (and easily amused…)! There are a lot of prizes up for grabs for just participating, so if you blog about your quilts, head on over and join us. Link ups finish the end of this week. Good luck!
If you are a blogger having arrived here from Amy’s quilt festival, welcome and please leave a comment – it would be a pleasure to “meet” you.
How do you hang your mini quilts? I’d love to hear from you. Comments make my day, and I’m always amazed at the plethora of ideas out there when quilters start sharing tips!!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday – Weekly Inspiration and Colour Happiness for your Quilting Mental Fitness!
Hi! Welcome back to Tuesday! Doesn’t it roll around quickly!? Today we are going to exercise the little grey cells and treat them to some beautiful colours along the way.
Mental exercise is good for your mind. Luckily for us, mental exercise can be waaaaay more fun than the physical sort! Keeping your mind active can be as fun as learning a new sewing technique. Resizing a quilt pattern. Or exploring new colour combinations. Anything that takes you out of your mental comfort zone and requires you to do some actual thinking rather than just consuming information or watching TV.
This week I have been stretching my mind by learning new techniques (playing with trapunto), and thinking about what to explore next for Colour Inspiration Tuesday. I finally settled on some strawberry flowers. These flowers remind me of the time when I was a country teen and had a huge patch of strawberry plants that I grew from a few runners my maternal grandmother gave me. I used to water them, mulch them and even feed them with cow dung that I collected and pre-soaked in buckets of water! And the little fruits were ohhhhh soooo sweet. Accessing happy memories is good for your mental health too!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday – Strawberry Vines
In honour of happy memories and mental exercise, today we have the “Strawberry Vines” colour scheme and an accompanying free-motion quilting motif to try. “Strawberry Vines” is a green, yellow and pale grey-blue colour palette. The blue is so subtle it looks white unless there is real white up against it. Go on, have another look at the photo. The main colour captured on the strawberry flower is not really pure white is it?
Anyway, I decided against designing us another quilt idea this week. The truth is that there are many good ideas floating around in Colour Inspiration Tuesday already. And I would like to have an honest go at some of them. Without the weight of new ideas to cause drag or distraction. But I did want to still give you something…… I am ever so grateful to you my readers and especially to my growing list of regular followers for coming by.
So, this week’s idea for personalising your quilts is….
Looking at the strawberry flower picture and remembering my garden with the hundreds of plants and gently tending the runners until the new plants had roots and planting them too, made me think of quilting strawberries, strawberry leaves and flowers on a continuous line. Strawberry Vines. Wouldn’t this be a lovely finishing touch for a quilt in summer colours or pastel tones? Or on reds, pinks and greens on a girl’s quilt? Do you remember the Strawberry Shortcake character from the 1980’s? A quilt in her colours!
Strawberry Shortcake…. 35 years old(ish) and still scented! This little darling now belongs to my daughter.
Strawberry Vines Quilting Motif
So I started doodling on paper and came up with my first go at such a design. Followed by a quick experiment on a fat quarter left over from Jewel Tone Diamonds and some waste cotton batting.
The three elements I used were leaf triplet, a small flower with the characteristic star in the centre between the petals, and of course, strawberries. As you can see, I tried the strawberries with and without seeds.
Strawberry Vines quilting motif
One of the things I like about my new impromptu design is that any gaps that get missed or are too hard to fill in with continuous quilting can be filled in with a curly “strawberry runner”. How good is that?!?
On my next try, I think I will round out the leaves a bit more. I know that strawberry leaves also have zigzagged edges, but that level of detail doesn’t interest me for quilting. The flowers were a bit tricky, I went through several methods to try to quilt them neatly. Here is the path that worked best for me. Start by travelling into the flower centre, and add the petals second:
A strawberry flower quilting path. Note, I have added gaps where lines would normally touch or overlay each other, so that you can easily see the pathway.
Don’t worry if you need to place more than 5 petals around the centre to finish the flower. Strawberry flowers can have 5, 6 or 7 petals. It’s the flat shape of the petals with the triangle gaps between them that make them so distinctive.
The other important thing to remember is to round off the tops of your strawberries where they meet the leaves. And don’t make the berries too symmetrical…. otherwise they look like acorns with the wrong caps instead. Or maybe persimmons. At least to me.
Next time I play with this motif I want to add flower buds as well. I have a UFO in colours not unlike “Lily Pad Glow” that might look nice quilted with this motif. What would you use it on?
Don’t need strawberry vines quilting motifs this week?
“Strawberries! How dull. Wake me up when you are quilting something interesting… like flies! Flies are cool!”
Today’s photo of strawberry flowers is from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. Credit is not required, but I’m sure you’d love to know who is being so generous with their talent. Accordingly, this photo was provided by John-Mark Kuznietsov. Be sure to check out his collection of photos on Unsplash. John-Mark Kuznietsov
I hope you have fun trying out this strawberry vines quilting motif. See you next time for more quilting fun!
P.S. If you would like to use John-Mark’s photo or another Colour Inspiration Tuesday photo for your own projects, you can easily find all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesday in one place for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.
You are invited too. Come and see what lots of craft-loving people are sharing on the net this week!! Here’s one of my favourites from the parties so far: Project Sew a Jellyroll by Patchwork Sampler
If you have been following for a little while, you may remember that I have been attending monthly local Handiquilter group meetings at the Adelaide Sewing Centre. I really like these meetings because they expose me to different techniques and give me a semi-hard-deadline to try them before the next meeting. This past two months we have been looking at trapunto.
The meeting before last, Heather talked about trapunto in general. Then last month she upped the ante by talking about shadow trapunto. This is fantastic, because I first discovered shadow trapunto on the internet years ago, and put it on my to-do list. Where it sadly stayed ever since. Until now.
I was pretty pleased that the next month or two’s worth of homework is something I have always wanted to try. But of course, time slips away and the next meeting is looming very large, so today and yesterday I have been madly going trapunto! 🙂
Researching my Trapunto Homework
A few months ago, I also discovered an amazing quilting blog by Geta Grama. If you are not familiar with this blog, you are definitely missing out. I highly recommend that you check it out (Hey, not just yet! – when you are finished here!! ;)).
What’s more, I discovered Geta Grama about the same time Heather announced that we were going to be looking at trapunto for the next few months. And, guess what Geta does a lot of? That’s right! Trapunto! So ever since, I have had one of Geta’s tutorials earmarked. Now I am having a crack at it, and here’s how it went….
After downloading Geta’s “Dream Big” file, I printed the pdf (4 pages) and stuck them together…. this went without a hitch. Now, here’s where I started to deviate from the script. I don’t currently own a working wash-out marking pen, and they make me nervous anyway. So, I traced the lettering onto greaseproof paper and layered this over white cotton quilting fabric and 200gsm (30mm) polyester wadding. I immediately wished I had opted for the thinner polyester batting, as the fat wadding didn’t fit very well under my sewing machine foot. It probably wouldn’t have been such an issue if I had just marked the fabric rather than trying to use baking paper, so perhaps I shall have to remember to buy a washout pen next time I am shopping.
Anyway, with a little care, I managed to sew around the lettering without losing the baking paper. I used soluble thread on the top and ordinary bobbin thread underneath.
“Dream Big” sewn onto fabric and polyester batting“Dream Big” sewn into polyester batting (from the back)
Then came the bit that has always put me off trapunto. The cutting away of the excess polyester batting. I hate the thought of nicking the top fabric or the stitching holding it all together. Just to cut out this little project took me an hour, and I did accidentally cut the stitching once. It promptly started coming undone quite badly, so I re-sewed the loose part straight away. Thankfully I didn’t nick the top fabric at any point. At this point I was pretty sure that trapunto is not for me. Too stressful for a hobby!!!
“Dream Big” trapunto cut away from excess batting.
I will note here that I should have read Geta’s tutorial more thoroughly before I started. She says starching your fabric really stiff helps keep the fabric from getting accidentally snipped. I’ll have to try that next time. If there is a next time….. see, I am warming to the idea.
Putting the Quilt Together
Once I had the trapunto prepared, I layered it over another two layers of bamboo/cotton blend batting (that’s what I had at hand) and put white fabric on the back. I used two layers because I read on Karen’s quilt blog that this will give you better quilting definition and more texture. I wanted to give this a go, and there’s nothing like killing two birds with one stone.
Then I traced the innermost heart shape onto more greaseproof paper and positioned it over the quilt sandwich using the lettering as a guide to placement. I stitched the outline of the heart in white thread and removed the paper.
Marking the boundary of the innermost heart with stitching.
Then I filled in the heart around the lettering with micro stippling and finished off the letters and heart outlines by going around them twice. I used variegated Wonderfill cotton thread for the micro stippling and Robison-Anton rayon for the outlines. The Robison-Anton shreds too easily in my Sweet 16, although I never had any problems with it in my domestic machine. I personally prefer Madeira rayon in my Sweet 16. However, the colour was the decider from the threads I had on hand, so I just persisted through the inevitable broken thread episodes.
Micro-stippling allows the trapunto to really pop out.
Quilting the background
The original pattern from Geta Grama was finished off with some simple echo quilting. But never one to stick to a pattern, I had to mess with it. Besides, I am always looking for ways to increase my quilting practice without increasing my number of projects. So, I drew up a slightly altered echo quilting plan and filled in the first concentric heart with half feathers. By this stage I was having fun. There will probably be a next time after all.
“Dream Big” trapunto with echo quilting.
Then I decided to complete the feathers rather than repeating the half feathers and alternate the feathers with other designs. I started with pebbles, but my bobbin ran out. Which was fortuitous because I decided I didn’t like the pebbles after all and ripped them out.
Here are the pebbles I started before ripping them out.
In the end, I decided to fill in the gaps between the feathers with micro-stippling. It seemed better to keep the number of design elements to a minimum.
Micro-stippling combined with feathers between the echo quilting.
Finally I decided that I liked the extra white space left at this point, so I actually didn’t fill in the last few sections with dense quilting. So the project finally ended up looking like this:
From the Sewing Room – The Stylised Flower motif and how I free-motion quilt with baking/tracing paper
Last time we talked quilting, I had just finished stabilising two charity quilts and deciding how I was going to quilt them. This week I have finished quilting the first of these, and I learned a number of lessons along the way that I thought you might be interested in. There is also a free downloadable template of the flower motif nearer the end of this post if you want to give it a go yourself.
Last week I designed a stylised flower motif to cover the pieced blocks of a red, brown and cream quilt that my daughter has dubbed “Jaffas and Cream”. Do you know what Jaffas are? They are an Australian and New Zealand chocolate treat. Delicious. But I digress….. 🙂
Stylised flower quilting motif over a Jaffas and Cream quilt block
At first I decided I was going to quilt this motif freehand, like the daisy I did on a similar quilt. I planned to mark the diagonal lines with chalk, and once I had the orange peels stitched in place, quilt the petals and corner details around the main lines. But it was not to be. I had “one of those days”, quilting-wise.
I marked up the first block with chalk and set to work. But I couldn’t get the tension between the top and bottom threads just right. Once I had what I thought was an acceptable balance, I couldn’t get the nice sweeping curves I wanted for the orange peel backbones. I started again on a second block, this time with extensive chalk markings to guide the sweeping lines. But still to no avail. I gave up and unpicked.
The dirty culprit….
Coming back at it later, I realised that the pre-wound bobbin was not spooling off nicely. I’m not even sure how to describe this issue in words…. The thread coming off was suffering friction from the adjacent thread still on the bobbin slightly trapping it. But not consistently. That was why I couldn’t get a nice stitch flow and happy tension. This is not the first time I have had trouble with these commercially wound bobbins, but it was the worst. I like the actual bobbin thread, but I will only be buying cones to wind my own bobbins from now on. This was Lesson 1.
Anyway, I re-wound the bobbin thread from the pre-wound bobbin onto a fresh bobbin. Having fixed the main problem, I also changed the needle for good measure. I was ready to go again. But my free-motion confidence and chilled disposition was now shot for the day!
The baking paper approach to the stylised flower motif
In the past when I have wanted to quilt a design that is too hard to do without marking, I have often traced it onto baking paper and quilted over the tracing. Then I pull the paper away. So, feeling a bit frazzled, I decided to ditch the freehand stitching and use a tracing. I have never tried this before on my Sweet 16, but I didn’t expect things to be particularly different to on my domestic machine. Wrong!
Stylised Flower motif after trace-stitching, before pulling off the paper.
It turns out that trace-stitching with the Sweet 16 is a different art to on my domestic machine. I think this is because on the domestic machine you are sitting more over the needle, and it’s slower. Both of these things means it is easier to retrace your stitches exactly when you need to back track. My first attempt at tracing the stylised flower motif was messy. It also resulted in too many small fragments of paper to pick out, trapped in the not quite aligned back-stitching. Agggh. I didn’t like it, it didn’t have the clean look that I set out to achieve, and it was going to take too long to clean the paper off 25 blocks. This was Lesson 2.
This was my first attempt at tracing the stylised flower motif. I actually intended to leave this as it was, but the remaining flowers worked out so much better, that I did rip it out and replace it once the other 24 blocks were done.
I ended up rethinking my stitching path several times to get a much neater and faster result. Lesson 3, and the one I am most satisfied with! If you would like to know how to best stitch out this design using baking paper, here is the method I settled on.
Tutorial: The Stylised Flower Quilting Motif
Supplies and Printing
The first thing you will need to do is print out the motif from the downloadable file below. Then you can trace it or print it onto tracing paper/baking paper/parchment paper. I use “Greaseproof paper” for my projects, found in the kitchen section of the supermarket. It is a type of baking paper. The cheapest versions are best; thinner and less slippery than quality baking paper brands. Save the expensive baking paper for your actual baking! And don’t get confused with waxed kitchen paper. Waxed paper is not good for this project.
Click here to download the pdf of the stylised flower motif.
Please note that the pdf is formatted to the A4 standard for Australia. You may need to adjust your printer settings if your default paper size is “letter”. The size of the provided motif is 5.75 inches square. This is because my blocks started at 6 inches square, but shrunk a little when I stabilised them. The final design is slightly smaller than my blocks, to ensure the whole motif fits inside.
I print my designs directly onto greaseproof paper by taping the greaseproof paper to a piece of office paper as a “carrier”. The greaseproof paper won’t go though the printer alone because it is too flimsy and it gets jammed. I use white paper-backed masking tape to attach the greaseproof paper to the office paper. This has never harmed my laser printer, but I take no responsibility for anything you put through your own printer. If you are unsure about putting unorthodox things through your printer, trace the design by hand.
Baking paper taped over printed office paper, ready for printing (left) and after printing (right).
Quilting the Stylised Flower
Pin the design to your quilts with quilting safety pins.
Pinned and ready to go.
First the leaves….
To quilt the stylised flower motif, enter into the design from one corner and travel to the diagonally distant corner through the centre point. Then quilt the first half of the corner “leaflet” and stop.
Follow the red line to quilt his design
I then tear the paper out of the way so that I can complete the leaflet and travel back to the centre of the design without double-stitching over any paper. Use the back of a seam ripper or a pin to neatly score the paper so it only tears away from where you want it gone.
Scoring the baking paper for controlled removal. You will also notice in this picture that I adjust the design on the fly to fit each block so that it reaches the edges.I now use the stitching lines already done as a reference for where to stitch next.
Finish the leaf and return to the first corner of the design through the centre. Finally, finish the little leaflet in that corner.
Now, travel along the edge of the block (stitch-in-the-ditch) to one of the two remaining leaves.
Travel along the ditch
Repeat the above steps to quilt the remaining leaves. Except, once you return to the centre after completing the third leaf, enter the first petal and stop with the needle down.
After finishing the third leaf, enter the first petal. Make sure you pause at the top of this first petal for more paper removal.
Then the petals….
Tear all the paper out of the middle so that you can see where you are stitching and to avoid back-stitching over paper. Be careful to leave the tops of the petals visible so that you can still see where to stitch.
Remove the paper from the flower centre, sparing the tops of the petals.Paper removed. Now quilt the petals using the petal tops and the leaf edges as visual guides.
Complete the petals using the petal tops and leaf edges as visual guides. Quilt into the centre for each petal but stop just short of actually touching the centre point to avoid a build up of thread there. Where petals cross over the leaf edges, don’t quilt into the centre again. Just bounce off the leaf stitching line to the next petal top. Finally, finish the last leaflet as you exit the block.
Finished stylised flower quilting motifAfter the paper is removed, finish quilting the petals.
What if you want to quilt this design, but not in a block?
If you are not quilting this design into a block and can’t travel invisibly between corners, you can also quilt it as shown below. I did actually do two blocks with this method before I changed to the described method above. I changed only because I found it easier to quilt the “S” shape straight through the centre than to neatly arc through in a half circle to the third leaf. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. I just did!
Another perfectly good way to quilt the stylised flower.
The rest of the quilting on this quilt
I completed the quilt with a vine of leaves in the sashing, and piano keys in the border with orange peels in the border corners.
Quilting in the sashing and borderOrange peels in the corner
That is it for me for this charity quilt. Now it is ready to go to the next quilter in the production process for binding.
Finished “Jaffas and Cream” quilt.
I hope you enjoy playing with this motif and making it your own. Let me know if you quilt it so I can feature your work for everyone else to see!
Do use a brand of pre-wound bobbin thread for your Sweet 16 that you would recommend. I’d love to know! Please comment below!
For more tutorials and colour inspiration for quilts, follow me on Pinterest, Bloglovin’ or by email (sign up in the side bar).
Our weekly update and a chat about why I am considering quilting more fabric panels….
But first….. what have you been working on this week? Something fun, I hope!
We’ve had a busy few days at Gardner-Stephen HQ, with it being submissions week for exhibits at the Royal Adelaide Show and also Book Week for the children. Book Week involves a school parade where each child dresses up as a favourite book character. The emphasis is on trying to be involved in making your own costume rather than just buying one. Lots of fun but a little labour intensive.
Crochet Christmas Stocking
This year, Miss 9 decided to have her first go at entering an exhibit in the Royal Show. (I think I can safely talk about this in public now, as judging will have already taken place.) Anyway, Miss 9 learned to crochet while we were living in Germany last year, and recently decided to design her own Christmas stocking to enter in the 8-10 year olds home economics class at The Show. She did a great job, don’t you think? She is anxiously waiting a verdict, asking me to check the online results every day! I have tried to encourage her to just be proud of entering. But she is very definitely hoping for a ribbon. Fingers crossed for her.
This week’s quilting adventures
So, as you can see, plenty of creativity going on around here this week. But not a lot of quilting. I have been working on stabilising two more charity quilts, ready for some free-motion quilting to make them a bit more special and unique.
Charity Quilt 1
The first one is a happy child’s quilt covered in big squares of bright colours. Some of the fabrics feature bugs, flowers or birds. Deciding what to quilt on this is easy for a change!!! I know, shock, horror!! Last year I did two quilts covered with flowers, suns, butterflies, dragonflies, leaves and snails. One of them was the quilt I did for my nephew featured in the Digging for Pineapples post last week. I will be dusting off those skills to quilt the same critters on this one.
Child’s quilt all stabilised and ready for FMQAren’t the prints cute on this?!!Here’s one of the little critter designs I’m going to be using. I’ll tell you more when it happens.
Charity Quilt 2
The second quilt is an adult quilt in red and brown. It is the same pattern as the quilt I quilted with the daisy FMQ motif. It is less feminine than that quilt, but it is still not a bloke’s quilt. The prints include lace, roses and butterflies, and the back is a dusky pink. I am still thinking through what to quilt on this one. Another repeated block pattern…. perhaps something similar to one of the orange peel-derived patterns from ipatchandquilt? Or butterflies?
The latest adult charity quilt in my queue.There is just enough blue-green in this colour combination to make it interesting. I quite like it, even though red isn’t close to the top of my favourite colours.
I am leaning towards a stylised flower design to match the geometric and graphic feel of the quilt. Something like this…..
Stylised Flower FMQ design, similar to an ipatchandquilt motif.
What do you think? I am hoping it will tie together the large scale leaf print and the lacy print. And then I can fall back to the leaf vine in the sashing that I did last time, which is quick and easy. And simple piano keys for the border to echo the piecing design.
There you go! I had more quilt news than I thought. To tie up for the week, let’s finish off with those promised thoughts on using fabric panels for quilting practice.
An expansion on my thoughts around fabric panels
Last post, I wrote about a little baby quilt that I did some free-motion quilting on. It was made from one of those fabric panels that you see in the quilt store, that I had simply written off as “those things people buy if they need to make a quilt and have no real interest in making a quilt”.
But it quilted up so nicely. And it gave me a good opportunity to challenge my thoughts about the value of fabric panels to mad-keen, more experienced quilters. I was definitely pleased enough with the experience to consider using them more often, and here’s why….
Speed
The one obvious thing in favour of using printed fabric panels is how fast you can put together a quilt. Need a baby or toddler quilt in a hurry? A pre-printed panel could be your answer.
Cost
With no cutting, no seams and no left-over fabrics there is very little wastage in a panel quilt. You only pay for the exact amount of fabric you need to cover the surface area of your quilt. Where I live, at least, the cost of printed fabric panels per metre the same as other fabrics, so panels will always work out cheaper than the equivalent patchwork. If you need a bigger quilt than the printed panel, it is a simple task to add a quick border or two.
FMQ beginner friendly
When you are starting out learning to free-motion quilt, one of the differences you will find between your practice pieces and a real quilt is when quilting over the seams. If your patchwork is especially fancy, there can be some pretty bulky seams lurking in your quilt sandwich! These can break your rhythm and make it hard to keep the quilt moving evenly and steadily. Panels have no seams, and therefore allow you to practice quilting on a real quilt and build your confidence before having to tackling quilting over any unpredictable thicknesses.
Another difference I find between my practice pieces and my real quilts is the “stress”. On my practice pieces I am not worried about messing up, so therefore I relax and quilt better. On a quilt that has taken weeks or months to piece, I find it hard to relax, even though it results in better quilting. I found that a fabric panel was more like a practice piece because it doesn’t represent a huge emotional, financial and time investment in its creation prior to quilting. So I relax more, enjoy the quilting and produce a better result.
Accuracy practice
Printed fabric panels are excellent for practising your quilting accuracy. The teddy bear quilt I quilted last week had motifs that I could quilt on or around without having to go to the trouble of marking anything. This is great practice for building muscle memory for free-motion quilting and also awareness of where your needle is. I don’t know about you, but when I first started learning FMQ, my ability to trace a design with the machine was appalling. I would never have been game to try to free-motion stitch in the ditch for example.
Here is a panel my mother gave me many many years ago, before I started quilting. I haven’t touched it because my mother died and I was scared of ruining it. But I know now that I can do an adequate job on it, and one day soon I will lay it out and quilt it. This sort of panel is a great example of one that would be perfect for tracing practice….. just quilt around all those printed pieces as if they were actually pieced and appliquéd!
If you have a printed fabric that is tricky to trace, you can also improve your skills by quilting near the design. Here is an example from early in my FMQ experience, where I just approximated the printed shapes on a bed sheet. Did my toddler analyse my FMQ skills? Absolutely not!!
Quilt around printed shapes for steering practice
Good for practicing your FMQ design/decision skills
One skill that quilters often need to practice is the decision making process of what quilting to put where. It’s great to ask around and get opinions and ideas, but in the end, it’s you that has to make the final decision. Quilting fabric panels separates this decision process from any distractions that piecing can cause…. like whether the piecing is inaccurate and hard to quilt, or too perfect and is making you nervous to touch the jolly thing! Quilting a few different panels with different themes and motifs is a good way to expand your repertoire. Perhaps knock up a few for a local charity even??
A more useful product
If you want your quilts to be used (I generally do!), fabric panels are your best friend. Commercial printing and no/few seams results in a quilt that can be thrown in the wash and dryer without fear of bleeding and falling apart. Being more robust and “less precious” than an intricately pieced quilt means that a new mum can be more relaxed about using the quilt. Speaking as someone who has been there….. I was given secondhand baby panel quilt that I used for all sorts of things because it wasn’t deemed “precious”. When it was dirty it went in the wash with everything else. When we didn’t need it anymore I handed it to the next person, knowing that it was a great asset. In contrast, the baby quilt my mum made before she died is still in the cupboard….. it has a different kind of worth.
Lesser risk of “Quilter’s Remorse”
Sadly, quilter’s remorse is a real thing. If you have been hanging around quilting groups for any length of time, you probably know at least one person who has gifted an amazing, expensive and laborious quilt to someone, only to be horrified and scarred at the lack of gratitude received. So give your pieced quilts wisely or let them go emotionally when you gift them.
Either way, don’t expect children or young mums to understand or be enthralled with your hours of labour. Many non-quilters simply do not understand the effort – they are not usually trying to be ungrateful. And children live in the now. They love quilts with their favourite characters/animal on. Be awesome and quilt what they like, not your own preferences.
Children also grow up fast and want bigger quilts with the latest character on. So unless you want your quilt to be passed down through the generations, perhaps a series of quick quilts that evolve with the child is better. They will get just as sentimentally attached to a well chosen fabric panel quilt as any other! And likely love them more intensely, even if for a shorter time.
Use your creative time and budget wisely. For “that baby shower gift for a friend of a friend”, a fabric panel quilt is probably a good option!
One word of caution
I mentioned that there is one reason why I don’t like printed fabric panels. And it is this. They can be hard to square up. I found this out when I made baby books for my son, and again when I made a quilt for my mother-in-law. Printed panels often don’t give you a lot of leeway for trimming to square. So be aware of this from the beginning. Block your fabric to square BEFORE you add any piecing or layer up your sandwich, or you may be facing some very awkward decisions between having a wonky quilt and trimming off some of the design in a non-symmetrical manner. Neither will give you much satisfaction.
I hope you have enjoyed our little discussion about fabric panels. Let us know your thoughts on using them…. do you use them? Why or why not?
How do you Hang your Mini Quilts?
How do you hang your mini quilts? I’d love to hear from you. Comments make my day, and I’m always amazed at the plethora of ideas out there when quilters start sharing tips!!
Don’t worry kitty! We are looking at quilting bugs later on this week. 
Doing My Handiquilter Group Trapunto Homework
Our weekly update and a chat about why I am considering quilting more fabric panels….
Here is a panel my mother gave me many many years ago, before I started quilting. I haven’t touched it because my mother died and I was scared of ruining it. But I know now that I can do an adequate job on it, and one day soon I will lay it out and quilt it. This sort of panel is a great example of one that would be perfect for tracing practice….. just quilt around all those printed pieces as if they were actually pieced and appliquéd!