How to make a Minion quilt

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Andrea R — Leave a comment

When I first saw the Minions fabric at Fat Quarter Shop, I told my husband, “OMG, they have Minion fabric,” and he said, “Buy it and make a quilt for Kim.”

So if the husband says buy fabric… well. Kim is an awesome lady we both work with. Some days I think she holds the place together. And she really really likes Minions.

This was a fast quilt for me, since I’m posting about the finish already. I ordered the fabric on July 4th.

If you want to make your own, you will need:
Minions Fat Quarter bundle + two panels included in the bundle (oops, out of stock. 13 prints plus two bundles)
Yellow Brick Road pattern
5 yards backing fabric
1/2 yard binding
batting

I followed the Yellow Brick Road pattern for the twin size right up to the laying out of the blocks. The twin size gives you 40 blocks from 12 fat quarters, but to go around the panel properly, you need 44.Since there are 13 FQs in the bundle, I set one aside to use as the corner blocks. I could just manage four 9.5″ blocks from the extra fat quarter. With the addition of the panel in the middle, it finishes at lap size. I left off the borders in the pattern.

I did a preliminary layout here. There are two rows of seven blocks above and below the panel, and two columns of four blocks on either side. I did an initial trim of the panel to fit.

Here’s the final piecing of the top, after some rearranging. I pieced the columns to either side of the panel first, then added the top and bottom rows.

And then I quilted the heck out of it! For the panel in the middle, I went around each Minion and highlighted details. I used a pale yellow poly thread, top and bobbin.

I decided that otherwise, I’d use an all over stipple, right into the background panel.

For the backing, I used the second panel with 5 yards of a yellow solid, and slightly offset the panel from the middle.

You can see some of the quilting of the Minions on the front on the back and how they overlap the panel there. The quilting and binding were done over two days, my Friday and Saturday off work. I might have started Thursday evening, I can’t remember. I got out of the habit of writing it down and will have to do this for my other projects.

(Kim is one in a Minion, for sure.)

For binding, I like to frame my quilts, so I picked a navy that was present in some of the prints. It was a less harsh than black.

And then I stared at it and smiled. And took it to TWO quilt guild meetings where everyone OOOHED and AAAHHED and “where DID you find that fabric??”

Then I wrote a nice note from the both of us, mailed it off and waited.

I think she liked it, because she cried. 🙂 I loved making this quilt, even though it killed me not to post progress shots. Kim does a lot, and it’s hard to look at this quit and NOT be happy, so I’m sure it will brighten her day every time she looks at it.

I think this was one of the faster finished this year, since from ordering the fabric to receiving the finish was three months.

Super Shoo Fly nap quilt

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Andrea R — Leave a comment

Last year, we went on vacation to PEI and while there, stopped in at the Quilt Barn. The husband and I picked out some beach themed fabrics, thinking we’d make a nap sized quilt we could lie under and dream of the red sandy beaches.

Well, it took ages for me to decide what to do, and one wild afternoon, I figured one HUGE quilt block with borders would do it.

This is a super fast quilt top! It only took me 2-3 hours, but that included figuring out time. It should take you less, because I did all the math for you. Unfortunately, I did not take pictures during construction.

Finished size: 43″ square (approximately)

Materials:

1/2 yard print A
1/2 yard matching solid
1/2 yard print B
1 yard or more print C. (mine was directional & needed more. I had 46″.)

A shoo fly block is four half square triangles and 5 solid blocks.

Cut 2 10.5″ squares from print A.
Cut 2 10.5″ squares from the solid.

Match up a print and solid, trace a line diagonally down the back for cutting, sew 1/4″ on either side, and make two HST blocks from each set. Starch and press. I use the Quick Quarter tool for marking accurately – super handy!

Cut one 10″ square from print A.
Cut 4 10″ squares from the solid.

Arrange with the HSTs in a nine patch for the shoo fly block. Sew together and press.

And now for borders! As my mom always says, “If your quilt isn’t big enough, keep adding borders till it is!” and that’s what we did here.

From the remaining print A, cut 3.5″ strips. 6 will be enough, with some piecing to fit. Sew these around the block -two for top and bottom, then two for sides.

From print B (finally!) cut 4 strips WOF 4.5″ wide. These should just fit when you sew them on, same manner as above.

From print C, for the finale – cut 8″ strips for the final round. My fabric was directional and I cut my strips lengthwise from a 46″ piece of fabric. If you cut WOF, you can get away with less yardage. I cut 5 strips and needed to piece a bit to get the right lengths. Sew strips like the previous – top, bottom, press. Then left and right – press.

You are done your Super Shoo Fly top!

Layer, baste and quilt as desired. Mine is still waiting. 😀

Free Motion Floral Sampler Quilt

Posted on March 8, 2014 by Andrea R — 3 Comments

A finish! Yay! This might be my first finished quilt of 2014, ugh.

For this quilt, I used the leftover blocks from my Summer Quilt. You can do this with any collection of 10″ squares. I had 25 blocks and some were duplicates.

This would look really awesome in solids or low volume prints or even alternate value prints.

Take your 25 blocks and lay them out on the floor or design wall until you get a pleasing arrangement. Sew two together for each row until you’ve sewn a whole row. Sew all the rows together.

(or grab two at random until you get most of the way through the stack and start sewing those pairs together. Make sure you leave enough single blocks behind to finish each row.)

For the backing, I had fabric that was 54″ wide and used that. Baste well with batting of your choice. Mine needed work.

For the quilting – this is the fun part.

I used my walking foot first and stitched in the ditch for each seam, leaving a nice square sewn for each block.

In each square, I quilted a different free motion design using the Bernina Stitch regulator on some and my free motion foot. I worked my way through Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters
and some of Leah Day’s free motion quilting designs as well. Have fun here! I used a white thread in the top and bottom on all fabrics.

For the binding, I trimmed the back so it was 2″ all around and folded it over to the front, then sewed it down. I screwed up trying to trim the corners so I won’t show that bit – just know there’s a gap. Sigh. I really need to work on mitring my binding, especially the “bringing the backing to the front” kind, which I don’t do often.

This quilt I am leaving in my own stash for an example of the kind of quilting I can do. I hope eventually to maybe quilt for customers, so this should give them something to look at to pick quilting styles if wanted. At the very least, it showcases my skills now and I can compare it to another quilt a few years from now.

Appliqued baby name quilt

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Andrea R — Leave a comment

When I heard I was going to be a grandmother for the third time in four years, well of course my first thought was what quilt I was going to make.

Okay, maybe that was my second thought.

After I made this baby quilt, I figured you would love to have this free baby quilt pattern. It was super fast and easy to make.

I had a yard or two of a lovely fabric with dancing bunnies in pretty pastel Easter gowns. It was perfect after we knew we would be expecting another girl. I pulled some somewhat matching tiny prints for the letters for the front of the quilt.

For the front piece of the baby quilt, I used about a yard of a tone on tone off-white print. It’s about 30-36″ by the 42″ width of the fabric. Then I cut the letters freehand from the fat quarters I had chosen to complement the print on the back.

The letters could also be done with a large thick font. My size was about as big as a regular sheet of printer paper, so you could draw them out on paper first and then cut them from the fabric.

It would be smarter as well, to fuse some fusible web to the back of the fabric before cutting out the letters. I didn’t, and it made my work a bit harder.

Also if you have a name with a lot more letters, you will need to make the letters smaller so they all fit. If you’re not sure, do a test with paper letters first.

You can see here how I didn’t like the original fabric for the letter A and swapped it for a yellow instead.

Here’s the quilt on my design board with the letters pinned in place to test placement. You can go vertically in a straight line – mark a guide line if you like – or go all funky and wonky.

Fuse the letters in place. This is mostly to hold them down before appliquéing. I used a blanket stitch that came on my Bernina Aurora 440 Quilter’s Edition. A zig zag will also work perfectly fine.

Baste the top and bottom together with your favourite batting and quilt away! I used an allover paisley design, and went around the letters entirely, adjusting the design to fit. This is great practise for any allover design you want to try. And a baby quilt is a great size to practise on.

I also used a pretty Sulky variegated thread in pink / green / yellow. It matched perfectly.

You can see here how puffy the letters look. The only thing I would do different now is to outline quilt the letters.

I bound the quilt in a jade green dot that was actually from a line of Christmas fabric. It works though!

I always pre-wash my quilt, so after coming out of the washer and dryer, the cotton fabrics and cotton batting crinkled up so nicely. It looks like a family heirloom already.

This is a super easy and fast quilt to through together. Just make sure the parents don’t change the name before birth, if you are making one ahead of time. 😉