Island Batik’s “Try a New Technique” month has given me the push I needed to finally make my machine a dust cover!

As an Island Batik Ambassador, my challenge for March was to choose some of the beautiful fabrics they sent to me in February and create something using a technique I hadn’t tried before. So, I decided to give “invisible machine appliqué” a whirl. But in order to try out such an appliqué technique, I needed something to appliqué onto. So I made a dust cover for my Sweet Sixteen sit-down longarm machine. You can read more about that decision process here.

Have you got the same or a similar machine you’d like to make a dust cover for? Or another, oddly shaped machine that needs a cover? Here’s a run down on how I made mine. Hopefully it will give you a few ideas.

How to Make A Bespoke Dust Cover…..

Step 1

Measure up the dimensions of the machine you want to cover. Note any attachments you want to be able to leave on when the cover is on.

My Handiquilter Sweet Sixteen has a height of about 17 inches with the front screen up, a front width of about 6 inches when you include the tension knob, a back width of about 15 inches, a diagonal depth of 27 inches and a tall thread stand that I want to leave on at the back. So my cover design will have to go around it. 

 

Step 2

Transfer these measurements to butcher’s paper or newspaper.

The easiest way I’ve found to mock up a cover is to determine the size of each side of your cover shape one at a time and cut out a paper shape to match. Then I used staples (tape would also work) to join the parts together to test out my shape for size and fit. I used seam allowances of 1/2 inch.

Step 3

Once your paper pattern fits to your satisfaction, decide whether you would like to merge any sides into larger pieces.

I decided to make all the vertical sides of my cover as a single unit, while the top is made separately. For reasons that will become clearer later, I kept all the seam allowances intact in between the pieces that I merged. In other words, each side is joined to the next, but with one inch of seam allowance in between. I also decided I needed a slit in the back of the top panel to accommodate the thread stand. So I designed the top panel in three pieces. My design looked like this:

The seam allowances in between the shapes are not shown in this diagram… I added those in when I drew this out on my fabric.

Step 4

To make the outer patchwork for this cover you will need one pack of 30 or more precut 10″ squares and about 6″ WOF of  coordinating yardage. The fabrics I used were given to me by Island Batik and come from the ever-so-lovely Blue Moon batik collection.

Choose which fabrics from the 10″ squares pack you want to use for the patchwork layer, and which to use for the decorative elements. 

I separated my Island Batik Blue Moon 10″ precut squares pack into dark, medium and light fabrics. I put aside the light fabrics for my appliqués. To make my patchwork, I cut the following from dark and medium fabrics:

• One 10″ precut square  was cut widthwise to give two pieces – one 6.75″ x 10″ and the other 3.25″ x 10″. I repeated this twice (ie 3 squares were cut like this in total)
• I also cut Twenty six 10″ precut squares into three strips of 3.25 inches wide each.

Step 5

Piece enough patchwork to cut out all your dust cover pieces from.

I first pieced the three 6.75″ pieces together side by side to make a 6.75″ x 29″ strip and used this strip later to make a row of 3 pockets.

I then pieced the 3.25″ x 10′ strips into rows and then joined the rows together slightly offset to look like bricks. The extent of the patchwork matches the shapes I previously planned for my cover, but slightly larger, so that I could cut them to their exact size after quilting.

Step 6

Layer the patchwork onto a polyester batting such as HOBBS Thermore and a backing fabric. Secure the layers with pins or the basting method of your choice.

I used a purple cotton fabric that my hubby bought me from Vanuatu last year for the inner layer of my dust cover.

As an aside, have you ever tried HOBBS Thermore batting? Just so you know, when I first opened the Thermore I was quite repelled by the toxic smell as well as the feel of the batting. I nearly always quilt with 100% cotton batting, occasionally with a bamboo blend, and of course they are soft to touch. In contrast Thermore feels rough and unpleasant to touch – almost sticky. Don’t be put off – though. Thermore turned out to be perfect for this project.

The offensive smell has aired out of the Thermore now, and it is smell-less. It has been open a fortnight, but the smell was gone more quickly than this. Unfortunately I can’t tell you exactly when I stopped noticing it. And as far as behaviour goes – sandwiched between two fabric layers and quilted, Thermore is stable and easy to work with. My machine cover feels nice to handle. And very importantly, there are places in my dust cover design where I had to sew through multiple layers of quilt sandwich, and never broke a needle. Not even the size 70/10 I used inappropriately late in the project because I couldn’t be bothered switching it back after finishing the appliqué stage. I suspect if I had been using my usual cotton batting that I would have paid for my laziness! 

Step 7

Quilt the dust cover panel sandwiches.

I quilted the Blue Moon patchwork-Thermore-backing fabric sandwiches with simple wavy walking foot quilting with a purple-blue variegated King Tut cotton thread. 

Step 8

Draw and cut out your final dust cover shapes. 

To do this, I drew the shapes onto the patchwork panels with a  chalk wheel including half inch seam allowances. Once they were cut out, I zigzagged stitched around all the raw edges to keep things neat and tidy.

Step 9

Construct the top panel.

I started by hemming the inside edges of the two top rear panels shown in the Step 3 diagram. To do this, I turned under an inch of the quilt sandwich on the edges where these panels meet in the top centre. I secured the hems with two parallel rows of straight top-stitching.

Then I placed these two panels so the hemmed edges overlapped by an inch and pinned to secure in place. I then sewed the top edge of these overlapped panels to the bottom edge of the front piece. The result was a long top panel made of three parts, with a slit towards the rear.

Step 10

Prepare the quilted pocket panel by finishing the top edge with single-fold binding.

I used a 1.25 inch WOF strip of coordinating fabric for the single-fold binding. First, I sewed the 1.25″ strip to the back of the top edge of the pocket with a 1/4″ seam. Then I pressed the strip to the front of the sandwich and folded it in half back on itself. The new folded edge was then folded up unto the front of the sandwich and top-stitched down.

Step 11

Add the pockets to one of the side panels….. it doesn’t matter which side.  The bound side goes at the top.

My pockets are on the right of my cover. I aligned the bottom of the pockets panel with the base of the main cover piece so that the ends of the pocket panel intruded into both the left and right seam allowances of the right side panel. Then I secured the pockets in place with a line of stitching inside both seam allowances (the right seam allowance is seen here marked in three vertical lines of chalk under the end of the pocket panel).

To cover the edges of the pocket panel, I trimmed my quilted pockets panel just outside the stay stitching lines. Then I folded the side panel back on itself at the centre of the seam allowances (centre chalk line) and sewed 1/2″ seams from the folds. The result looks like this, with the pocket panel trapped into the seams at each end.

Underneath it looks like this:

I turned the pocket panel into three pockets by stitching two vertical lines through all layers, evenly spaced along the panel.

Step 12

Sew up the other two seam allowances in the large dust cover panel. This nicely defines the two corners where pockets were not inserted.

I did this simply by folding the panel at the corners, right sides together and sewing a 1/2 inch seam parallel to the fold. This turns the seam allowances into a tuck that helps give the cover some shape.

Step 13

Decorate the main panel of the dust cover as you wish.

I added two geckos to one side and a third to the pockets side using my usual fused raw-edge appliquë technique. The gecko templates are from my trip to Vanuatu and they can be found in this post here. I enlarged the gecko templates to fit diagonally across a 10″ pre-cut fabric square and used rayon thread to stitch the geckos down free-motion. I was very happy with how the HOBBS Thermore performed under the free-motion appliqués. No puckering or gathering. So now I know I can use it for this purpose again in the future. 🙂 

I also added some “invisible machine appliqué” to spell out the word “create”. Finally, we get to the ultimate purpose of this project!! I used five different Blue Moon batik prints for my lettering – two the same as the fabric on my geckos. Beautiful!

To do this, I used the Polyfuse and glue method I was experimenting with earlier this month. But with further tweaking.

Hopefully I will have time to show you the rest of my experiments this week, but briefly, the changes I made were:

• cutting out the centres of the Polyfuse shapes to leave the Polyfuse only under the turned seams. This gives me the softer finish I was looking for. But of course this adds a step of complexity and increases the time required.
• swapping out the Sulky clear thread for a Rasant thread that matched the appliqué colours. In the end, I got tired of how hard the “invisible” thread is to handle and how shiny it is. 
• changing my machine appliqué stitch from zigzag to a blind hem stitch. I didn’t like the blind hem stitch on my machine, so I did my blind hem stitch manually. More details about that in another post soon.

Here is a close up of the very nice outcome, but I’ll be looking to speed things up in the future!

Step 14

Sew the top panel into the dust cover.

I sewed the rear panels to the back of the cover first, aligning the hemmed edges. 

I stopped 1/2 inch from the corners, tied off and broke thread so that I didn’t sew into the seam allowance. Then to sew the next side, I started in the same place. But this time I sewed along the next side, still avoiding catching the seam allowance under the needle.  This is the same method as sewing a Y-seam in patchwork and allows the corner to open up in 3-dimensions.

Once the top was completely sewn in I also top-stitched along the two long seams along the top left and top right edges of the cover to help it keep its shape.

Step 15

Add velcro to close the back of the dust cover where it splits into two. Place several small (1-2 inch) velcro pairs along the hem so that you can close the dust cover around your thread stands or any other machine parts that emerge from the dust cover. 

I used one pair of velcro pieces on the top of my cover and three down the back. I attached the velcro pieces with straight stitch around the edge of each piece.

Step 16

Finish the bottom edge of your dust cover.

You could just hem the bottom. But I wanted to have another go at single-fold binding. This time I used two WOF coordinating fabric strips  1.75″ wide, joined on the diagonal. After I had sewn the strip to the back with a 1/4 inch seam, I folded in 1/2″ at each end to encase the edges of the cover.

I then top-stitched the binding to the front as I did for the top of the pocket panel in Step 10.

And that’s it!!!!! 

A Few Photos of the Finish

More Experiments

Even though I have now completed my new technique project for March, I’m not really done exploring the machine appliqué space yet……. Now that I have spent so much time researching invisible machine appliqué, I have more things I want to try.  And I want to tell you more about the things I have already tried, including those listed in Step 13.

I hope you are now inspired to try some turned-edge machine appliqué for yourself, or make a pretty dust cover for your favourite sewing/quilting machine. Let me know if you do!

Or have you got a different new technique that you are eyeing off for your own skill set? Or even something that you’d like explored in more detail by the Chameleon for you? Be sure to let me know with a comment!

P.S. Sharing my dust cover finish at TGIFF (mmm!quilts). Sandra Walker of Musings of a Menopausal Melon is hosting this week. Sandra has a sweet postcard to show, and has also issued a call for us quilters to show some practical love to Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts and Amy of AmyScrapSpot who are both going through some really tough times. Head over to Sandra’s post to find out more, including how to help out if you can.

P.P.S. Also sharing on Love Laugh Quilt, Cooking Up Quilts, Freemotion by the River, Quilting Room with Mel, Inquiring Quilter, Quilt Fabrication and Sew Fresh Quilts.