You should already have your three background snowflake fabrics cut and set aside to receive the snowman appliqué items per instructions.
So, first thing is to tape your snowmen template sheets together. There are six sheets per snowman included in your pattern. You will want to take a little time with this to match up registration marks and get them squared up to the correct block size.
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Now you’re ready to begin tracing the individual shapes of each item in the snowman image onto your fusible web products. We like using a fine tip Sharpie in any color however, using a different color for each block will make organizing your fusible pieces much easier to access readily. The All About Christmas quilt pattern templates are already in reverse so trace with template sheets, printed side up, on the paper side of you fusible products. Again, just as in the fabric cutting suggestions last week, place and trace your largest glue pieces first to assure you will have enough of the fusible to complete this process.
Next begin laying out all of your smaller appliqué pieces in the remaining areas where they fit best for utilizing all of the fusible materials. We stronglysuggest numbering the pieces too as you go. This will come in handy later when you begin to arrange and fuse the difficult to recognize pieces on your background fabric blocks. Once all of your fusible web pieces have been drawn, rough cut them out and organize by block.
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Side Note: You will be tracing your Riley White snowman and snowy ground twice, first on your chosen fusible web product and a second time on a lightweight fusible interfacing product. We use Pellon Fusible 911FFW1 Featherweight. This will help to block the fabric underneath from showing through your white appliqué fabrics. You may want to use this method for the yellow fabrics in your piece also. Layering sequence when you are ready to fuse these, will be wrong side of appliqué fabric to interfacing, that unit to fusible web and then onto background fabric in the indicated order. You will end up with a heavier/thicker appliqué unit.
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Next, making your raw-edge appliqué pieces.
Refer to the pattern cover art to begin fusing the correct, numbered fusible web pieces to their corresponding fabrics, according to the manufacturers directions. After all of the appliqué pieces are fused, you can cut them out accurately with a good sharp pair of scissors. I do not use my ‘for fabric only’ scissors for this but rather a specified favorite. We recommend letting all of your appliqué pieces coolcompletely before attempting to remove the paper backing. If time allows we prefer waiting overnight but a couple of hours may be enough. Another tip for removing the paper is to score a line with anything sharp but not enough to cut through the fabric, anywhere on the paper side of your fused appliqué. Then begin peeling the backing paper away from the fabric using the scored line as a stating point. This will help to prevent fraying your fabric edges.
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Now, building the snowman blocks!
After all of the paper is removed from your appliqué pieces, you are ready to arrange and place them in your snowman blocks. The numbers on each snowman template indicate which piece is the next to be fused. As stated in last week’s post, placement is best achieved using a placement sheet. Since you cannot view the template sheet through the background fabrics we like tracing the template onto a sheet of ordinary tracing paper to make a placement sheet ‘door’. Explained last week here and shown below.
You can see in the above phoyo that we opted to cut out the small snowman (block 3) both in cotton and batting to offer a little extra pouf . This is your preference.
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Having fun yet?
I like the cutting and fusing best myself, but next week we are
READY to SEW!
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Show us your progress as you follow and tag me on Instagram @jweckerfrisch
and please use #allaboutchristmasfabric to share your photos.
All About Christmas fabric has delivered and is in a shop near you. Find a list of retailers in my last blog post here.
This collection is beautiful! It includes the Christmas story from Luke 2 making it VERY Christmas-y and we especially love those details. In addition, the printing quality is wonderful thank you to our fabric partners at Riley Blake Designs.
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So, here we go with another little Sew-A-Long. This time it will be a mini. The two items that we will be sharing over the three weeks are,
Our three large snowman blocks (row 4)
Reverse raw edge appliqué blocks (rows 1 & 5)
This week we will be looking at number 2, reverse raw edge fusible appliqué for the ornament blocks. The snowflake blocks are done the same way only much less detail so we will be focusing on row one.
Do you have your pattern and fabric ready? If not, visit this link to find a shop.
Are you ready to sew?! Let’s go! According to the All About Christmas pattern instructions, it is important ‘To Get Started’ by cutting fabrics for the large snowmen blocks FIRST. This assures that you will have the larger fabric cuts set aside when you need them. Follow the cover art for the fabric choices and make cuts according to the pattern instruction page(s) and directional fabrics. If you are new to the technique of reverse raw edge appliqué I highly suggest reading the pattern in it’s entirety before starting or cutting into your fabrics.
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Since some of our designs for this quilt were stencil-like with white as the main center image (see the snowflake and ornament rows), we selected this reverse appliqué technique. Often with appliqué we will use a second interfacing product to mask the background fabric from showing through our white however, we found this to be a better option for the ornament and snowflake blocks on this quilt. The photos below will offer a visual aid so-to-speak to support this explanation.
Once you’ve cut your fabric squares for blocks in Rows 1 and 5, you can begin tracing the designs onto your fusible web product according to manufacturers directions. We like Pellon Featherweight Fusible 805. Be sure to trace all of the pieces that make up the inside ornament designs before fusing. You will be using those to help your fabric remain as a continual image. Fuse to wrong side of fabric considering whether your fabric square will be using a directional print and align accordingly.
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When you go to cut out the ornament rounds, be careful not to cut through the outside square itself or those tiny pieces. You can see at the bottom of our ornament photo below where we began poking the scissors through to cut around the perimeter only. This way, when the traced ornament is removed, your background stays completely intact. Then cut your smaller (traced beforehand) pieces and set them aside somewhat in order, or you can number them if that helps.
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Once all of your ornament pieces are cut out you are ready to fuse. Sandwich the colored fabric silhouette squares on top of your Riley White squares that will show from underneath. You can place the pattern flipped upside down (since already in reverse) beneath your layered fabrics to use as your placement guide. Or, another method that we like to use, is a tracing paper door, as we call it. The photos below plus this link will explain. Simply put, we trace the block template image(s) onto ordinary tracing paper and pin down on one side of your block to help with accurate placement in the event the paper pattern does not show through your fabric. We also found that using tweezers was the easiest way to then nudge the tiny pieces into place. When you get them where you like, fuse!
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Here are our results. Now for the fun part, stitching them down. I will be using thread to match and a blanket style stitch. I find both are somewhat forgiving. You may choose to use any number of decorative stitching to add these details if you prefer over these tiny appliqué pieces. This is where your sewing skills will shine beyond my limited experience so please, send progress photos! And have fun of course 😉
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I hope you had fun sewing along with me! If you have any questions about this technique, leave a comment below! See you next week for the BIG snowmen blocks.
Why is it called a minisew-a-long? Over three weeks I will be demonstrating the reverse raw edge appliqué technique used to make my All About Christmas Quilt & sewing along with you to make the three large snowmen blocks! Grab your supplies and sew along with me!
SCHEDULE:
July 7th: Learning the Reverse Raw Edge Appliqué Technique for top & bottom rows
July 14th: Snowman Blocks
July 21st: Snowman Blocks continued and wrap up
SUPPLIES:
To participate in this sew-a-long you will need my All About Christmas Quilt Pattern (or a quilt kit), All About Christmas & Painter’s Palette Fabric, and a few other appliqué supplies. See list below for retailers!
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WHERE TO SHOP:
Check with your local quilt shop to find the supplies needed for this sew-a-long! You can find a store locator here. If your local shop is not carrying it, see list below for online retailers:
Did I miss your shop? Leave me a comment and I will add you to the list. If you are a quilt shop you can shop my patterns & fabrics from Riley Blake Designs. I can’t wait to sew-a-long with you right here on July 7th!
• Old Made fabric is our 2021 (non Halloween) Halloween collection delivering to shops now!
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• Painters Watercolor Swirl fabric is our first Basics collection with Riley Blake Designs and is delivering now. It was chosen out of our Painters Palette fabric group which has joined the Riley Blake Designs Basics offerings!
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• All About Christmas is scheduled to deliver in shops next month! And when we say ALL about Christmas, we mean Jesus! Complete with Him in a manger as the main panel. Also angels, camels, nativity, etc. You get the picture. Lol
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• Riley Blake Designs Virtual Quilt Market is next week!!! We are presenting “Coffee Chalk” and “The Best of She Who Sews”!! Join this Facebook event here:
This has been the longest amount of time between posts, since I began my blog in 2009. We have been busy though this past year, thankfully. I hope this finds you all doing well and still making, sewing, quilting, etc.
It is an easy raw edge fusible appliqué place card for your Easter table or if you hurry, a post card. Best of all the template is a FREE download so use as you want. As always, you’re the maker.
All you need to make these is your favorite fusible web product (we like Pellon 805 featherweight), backing fabric, batting, background fabric, chocolate bunny appliqué and egg appliqué as shown. And our free downloadable template, link below.
Using the template trace your bunny(s) and egg(s) separately on to the paper backing of your fusible product. Rough cut and fuse to your chosen fabrics according to manufacturers instructions. Then cut them out and set aside.
Cut your background and backing fabrics 4.25″ x 6″ and batting squares at 5″ x 7″. We chose to secure patches, also using the fusible product in between each layer
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You will sandwich these layers, centering the square patches, batting is designed to hang over the edges with a fusible product in this order. We chose to cut our background fabric with a pinked edge, optional. Fuse patch units. With the template as a guide for placement you are ready to attach the chocolate bunny and then egg applique.
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Now, you are ready to sew!!!
Use your favorite decorative or free motion technique to stitch down your appliqué and top stitch/frame around your patches. You may also personalize by stitching or stamping as we did.
Click on the link below to download and, HAPPY EASTER!
Going through the final steps quickly but as always, posting plenty of photos that speak volumes.
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Snipping off sashing to be even with the block edges, was first.
Cutting the rest of my sashing strips came next. I counted eight more 1.5″ strips the full length of my fabric. I then cut three more short 8.5″ pieces to attach my last 3 blocks to their rows plus set aside enough for the horizontal sashing.
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Connecting all the blocks together was next. You may want to start with the three rows at the top. I began with the three short rows that connect to the left side of our large snowman block. Then the three blocks making up the row to his right side.
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When they were both assembled I measured to see if they matched the height of our untrimmed snowman and hurray, they did! I then took two pieces of sashing and sewed them to both sides of my snowman. Following that I attached both block units, one to his left and the other to his right in the same manner that I made each row.
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Once I had that large unit of blocks, I started building the rows above this large unit, row by row to the top. Lastly I added my bottom row, placed the piece back on my design (window) board and enjoyed a look.
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Finally, on to the borders!
Inner border (above pic) is strip pieced with same size as sashing so yes, I cut five more 1.5″ strips of Riley White. I cut one in half to add to my two side borders and grabbed a couple of leftover sashing pieces making them long enough for my top and bottom. Pretty easy.
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Outer border uses the pretty candy making text and this can also be cut to 7″ strips and strip pieced. You will need to piece the four strips to be the correct length according to your pattern.
However . . .
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I decided that I wanted my outer border to be directional. So I refolded the fabric (little less than two yards) to cut my 7″ side pieces with the text facing up as you would read. Then cut my top and bottom pieces from the remaining fabric and pieced to fit the full width of the quilt. This seamed like the better way to achieve an uninterrupted appearance.
For me this is the end of the Snow Along. I will prepare my binding and send with my top off to the quilter to complete. I hope you all found my photos and posts helpful as an addition to the pattern directions. Please let me know either way.
Thank you for trying or will be trying this project. I found it a relatively easy quilt to build although I had help.
Thank you to my daughter Katie!! She not only created all of the technical drawings and graphic work in our pattern but also traced, cut and fused all of the appliqué blocks and cut all of the fabrics for the pieced. I did the sewing. Ta-daa!
