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!
Since there is a lot of info to cover this last week will be in two parts.
Assuming that everyone has all of their blocks completed and trimmed or will have, it is time to assemble!
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To start assembling the quilt portion, I cut five one and a half inch strips of Riley White fabric for the short sashing pieces. Check your pattern for accurate amounts if you want to cut all at once. I inched my way into this process, no pun intended.
From my five I cut eight and a half inch lengths, enough to attach my first couple of horizontal rows of blocks together. Refer to your pattern cover for block placement.
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Beginning with block one (top left) lay one of your Riley White strips (1.5″ x 8.5″) on the right side of Block 1, right fabric sides together. Split the difference of the extra half inch between top and bottom of your block to be trimmed later.
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Sew together using a quarter inch seam.
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Press the seam toward your block.
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Repeat the steps to connect block one and two together with this same sashing strip. This time lay block two on top of sashing strip lining up at right (see photo), again right fabric sides together, being careful to also line up both blocks top to bottom. You may want to pin in place before sewing.
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Continue working this way until you have all of the top row of blocks connected. Then move on to row two!
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And so on, until you have all of the blocks that connect using the short sashing pieces as shown on the pattern cover art. Seeing it all come together is the most fun for me, agreed?
I will post Part B on Saturday so stay tuned.
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Embellish Options.
This festive project is loaded with possibilities to stitch on some fun extras! We plan to add buttons for our snowmen eyes and gingerbread man but remember to do this after your quilt top has been quilted.
I am happy to report that our piecing portion of our quilt is complete! Whew!!
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A couple of items I should have mentioned earlier, pressing your seams. Always press as you go is highly recommended for a neat job and press the seams toward the darker fabric whenever possible.
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And something I learned along the way to get my points closer to each other. Sew on the side that allows you to see your seam and stitch right across that. Who knew, not me. 😉
Below are the last four blocks that I saved until last. They appeared a bit more unfamiliar to me because of the corners which are all similar, and on an angle. However, following the sequence on the Pieced Blocks Guide in the pattern, I could quickly see that there was little to no difference in difficulty and all went smoothly as the others.
I think these are my best blocks to date! Perhaps I’m getting better the more I make.
In each block I did the corner work first. Once that was done, I attached pieces in the same sequence as all of the other blocks from Thursday’s post, horizontal rows. Last I attached the three horizontal rows from top to bottom, to complete.
Our gallery.
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Row 1, block 2.
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Row 4, block 3.
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Row 6, block 1.
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Row 7, block 6.
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Trimming.
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Trim each to eight inches, square for your seven and a half finish size blocks. In most cases ours only needed a smidgen cut off to clean up and even each block.
Again, voila!!
I feel quite accomplished or should I say quilt, and I hope you do too.
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Again, share, share, share:
When posting photos use #snowalong and #snowsweetfabric in your social media so we can find/see your progress.
Let us know if you post on Pinterest as well and we’ll add to our board.
