On most of my applique patterns, the little stitched details – things like eyelashes and eyebrows and smiles – fall inside the applique pieces.
That makes it really easy to transfer those detail lines to fabric. They’re right on the pattern pieces!
Sometimes I have detail lines that fall outside of the applique pieces, but until now those have just been whiskers, and they’re a continuation of lines that start inside the pieces, so they’ve been easy to transfer too.
But what about something like these creepy, dangly mosquito legs?
How the heck do you transfer those lines to the background block? Especially since the way I work means the background block is already quilted to a layer of batting, making it impossible to see through?
Well – I came up with an answer!
All you need is a sharp pokey thing and a black pen. 🙂
Here’s what those lines look like after you mark them with the marker
And if you scroll back up, you can see them stitched.
Socks are one of my very favorite things to knit. They’re almost instant gratification. I can make a pair of socks in a weekend if I have enough Star Trek, X-Files, or Secret Lives of Mormon Wives to watch.
(One of those things is not like the other.)
When one of my knitting friends showed me the Colorwork Cuff Club pattern by Summer Lee, I knew what my next project was going to be.
Like the title suggests, this is a sock club. You buy the base pattern once, and you get a new colorwork cuff every month. (You also get all the previous month’s patterns when you buy the base pattern.) The cuff changes, but the foot pattern is the same every time, which makes these socks knit up super quick.
I’m not planning to knit the cuffs in order, but I did happen to start that way. The first cuff pattern released was also the first one I knit—August.
This pattern was so nice, I made it twice. One set, the blue, is for my mother. The other set is for me.
For the blue socks, I used Fiona Kay’s Stampede Sock in the color Nevermore as the main color. She doesn’t seem to be running her Poe collection anymore, but she always has new stuff on her website and her Instagram. I was also able to find her yarns at Northwest Wools.
For the accent color I used a mini skein from Lamb Good Fibers. It was part of a whole set of minis, so I have no idea what the color name was.
For the purple socks, I used Knitted Wit Sock in the color Galaxy Flower. This was part of Knitted Wit’s Herstory collection, which are monthly colors each representing and highlighting a famous woman. Once they’re gone, they’re gone for good, so you may have a hard time finding this exact color.
I really like Knitted Wit’s yarn for socks. They’re durable, soft, and are perfect for colorwork.
For the accent color I used a Teal Torch Knits mini in the color Neon Melon. I love neons, and I think this was the perfect accent color to go with the dark purple.
I had a blast making these socks, and I’m already working on my next pair from the Colorwork Cuff Club—this time September.
“Wouldst thou like the taste of butter? Wouldst thou like to live…deliciously?”
For those who don’t know, those are lines from Black Phillip, the demonic goat from the movie The VVitch. My friend and I both like that movie, and love to quote Black Phillip to each other. When my friend’s birthday came around this year, I knew what I had to make.
There weren’t any patterns that I could find that were specifically Black Phillip, so I had to improvise a bit. I used the Felt Billy Goat Stuffie pattern by Lia Griffith as my base. The felt I used was from Benzie Design. I used black for the body, and graphite for the horns.
The pattern didn’t call for it, but I added pipe-cleaner armature in the legs and in the horns. I don’t think they were necessary for him to stand, but they did help me keep his legs from splaying, which I know can happen with this shape. The only adjustment I made to the pattern pieces themselves was lengthening the horns so they would be more like the goat in the movie.
The other big change that I made was the eyes. The pattern calls for itty-bitty 5mm safety eyes. I had those, but only in black. In the movie, Black Phillip has yellow eyes.
(Don’t believe all the fanart with red eyes. They are wrong.)
Normally I wouldn’t mind just subbing in black safety eyes instead of a color, but the black eyes just weren’t showing up on the black felt. I went through a couple different options. I thought about doing sequins, but then I didn’t have any in yellow or gold. My next thought was small buttons, and those ended up being a strong contender.
In the end, I went with gold rhinestones. I’m so glad I did, because I think they look awesome. They catch the light beautifully, and they give him a supernatural look. I added eyelids because the rhinestones were twice the size of the eyes the pattern called for—without the eyelids they looked a bit ridiculous.
I’m not one to believe in this sort of thing, but I think my Black Phillip was cursed.
I’ve never stabbed myself so many times, and I’ve never had so many seams bust open. To be fair, this pattern has some pretty thin gussets on the legs. They give the goat some sharp-looking shaping, but they’re also liable to tear–especially since you want to stuff the legs firmly so he’ll stand well.
The stabbing thing is a whole different story though. It only started after I put his eyes on him. I think the eyes gave him sentience and he went after me.
The goat pattern said it would take an hour or more to make this pattern. For me it was definitely more.
The first big seam where you sew one side of the body to the legs and belly piece was especially time consuming. It took me a whole episode of M*A*S*H just to clip the pieces into place.
Even though it took me a lot longer than the pattern said it would (I think it took me two episodes of X-Files just to stuff the body) he turned out beautifully.
I was sad to see him go when I shipped him off. I might have to make myself a Black Phillip soon. Hopefully he won’t be out for blood this time.
While I was at it, I also added sleepy, peaceful, closed eyes, and happy, scrunched up, smiling eyes. Just put them where the oval eyes are on any of my patterns.
The medium size will work for almost all patterns, but I also included small and large versions of all the options. You can, of course, resize as needed to fit any eyes.
Have fun with these!
Here are links to all the posts showing how to applique with fusible adhesive – my favorite method. It’s fast and easy and (with the right materials) it holds up beautifully to rough use and repeated washing.
For the most part, giant applique is the same as regular applique – trace, rough cut, fuse, clean cut, fuse again.
If you’re new to applique with fusible adhesive, do NOT start with a giant block. There’s a post here with very detailed instructions, and you can follow along with one of my free patterns. Make at least one “normal-sized” block, and then come back and tackle giant blocks. 😁
In this lesson I’m going to show you how to handle the quirks of giant applique.
Tracing Your Enlarged Pattern
There are two things different with this step.
One – you’ll need to “explode” the pattern yourself. That is – separate the pieces and mark where any extra seam allowance for underlap is.
Two – when you enlarge the pattern, you also enlarge the lines of the pattern. Depending on how thick the lines were to start with and how much you enlarged it – the lines can get to be 1/4 inch thick – or even more! Where do you trace and cut?
This video shows you how to tackle both of those issues.
Not hard – just a couple of things you need to think about. 🙂
What If the Pattern Piece Is Bigger than the Biggest Fusible Adhesive You Can Buy?
Post it notes are my secret weapon. 🙂
The Heat & Bond Lite that I prefer is available by the bolt – so the length is unlimited, but the width is just 17 inches. That will work for a lot of patterns – but not all of them. And who knows how big you’ll make future projects? Maybe you’ll make a king-size quilt with one enormous applique in the middle. It’s possible! 🙂
How to Position and Fuse Your Applique When It’s Bigger than Your Ironing Board
There are two possibilities here.
If your image is symmetrical, it’s possible to build it from the neck up – bit by bit. That’s how I did this giant fox block.
If your image isn’t symmetrical, you’ll need to position everything on a flat surface, pin it, move it to your ironing board, and then fuse it section by section. That’s what I do with this bunny block.
So that’s the applique itself. What about the next step?
Using Thicker Thread
In addition to scaling up the applique pieces, I also like to scale up the stitching that outlines them. I do that by using thicker thread.
12 weight is the thickest thread you can use in a standard sewing machine, so that’s what I use. I almost always use Sulky 12 wt. thread in black. On the rare occasion when I outline in a color, I use smaller Sulky Petites spools.
Outlining with thick thread is pretty much the same as outlining with regular thread, with just a couple of exceptions.
One – you need to use a needle with a larger eye. I use 90/14 topstitching needles and they work great.
Two – do NOT use the thicker thread in your bobbin. Use a regular weight thread for the bobbin.
Since your thread weight doesn’t match your bobbin weight, you may need to adjust your tension a bit. Stitch up a quick row of stitching using the same weight batting you’ll be using and different color threads in the top and the bobbin. Adjust the tension as needed until the bobbin thread doesn’t show on the top and the top thread doesn’t show on the bottom. Make a note of the new tension and use that every time you’re topstitching with your heavy threads and you won’t need to test it again. (I recommend writing it right on the spool.)
If you don’t want to mess with using thicker thread, you can always go around all the shapes more than once for a thicker line. I find that three passes with regular thread gives about the same definition as one pass with the thicker thread. I actually like the sketchy look of multiple lines, but I don’t always want to go around all the pieces three times. It really just depends on my mood. 🙂
Intro and Tools and Supplies – a look some samples of projects made with giant applique, plus an overview of any special tools and supplies you’ll need
Enlarging Your Pattern – how to figure out how big you’ll need it to be, and how to print giant template pieces
Tips and Tricks for Giant Applique – what do you do if the pattern piece is bigger than your fusible adhesive, if it won’t fit on your ironing board, and how to scale up your outline stitching
If you’re just enlarging it a little bit, you might be able to get away with following the instructions in this post.
But if you want to make it really big, you’ll need to go to a copy shop with an oversized printer to print your pattern pages. I checked with Kinkos, Staples and Office Max in my area and all of them can print large sheets – so you should be able to find an option near you.
The Kinkos in my town charges $0.75 per square foot for oversized printing – not a bad deal at all. (That’s for black and white printing. Color is a LOT more expensive, so print your patterns in black and white even though the size reference square might be in color.)
Kinkos is my favorite print shop – and the folks there answered all of my questions. Basically – they said you can do either of these options. . .
Have Them Enlarge It for You
You can print your image out (print any page from any pattern at 100% scale) and bring it in to the shop. Ask them to enlarge it for you. They’ll scan the image and print it out to any size you want.
What size should you make it? I design all my applique patterns to fit in a 10 inch block because that makes the math really easy.
If you want to enlarge it to fit in a 14 inch block – ask them to print it at 140%.
If you want to enlarge it to fit in a 25 inch block – ask them to print it at 250%.
If you want to enlarge it to fit in a 36 inch block – ask them to print it at 360%.
Whatever size you want – just add a 0 to the % enlargement. Easy peasy.
They can also do this if you save the PDF to a flash drive. Just tell them what page of the PDF you want printed out and what size.
Enlarge It Yourself Using Any Photo Editing Program
This option allows you to use the self-service printer, if that’s on option at your copy shop. It is at mine.
This option is a little more work for you – and requires a bit of ease with computers – but you don’t need any fancy programs. I’m using GIMP in the video (it’s a free program) but you can use Photoshop (including the bare-bones Photoshop options that you can get for free) or any other photo editing software out there. It’s just resizing – so it’s not an advanced tool or skill.
Here’s a video showing two things – how to import an image from a PDF into your editing program, and how to calculate what size you need the new image to be.
FYI – this video was originally part of a class that included patterns for the projects shown here. Now the lesson is free, but the video still includes references to the patterns included for those projects.
Just to clarify a couple of points. . .
Opening vs. Importing
If you’re using a JPG file, you can just open it in your editing program. You don’t need to go through the extra steps of importing it.
PDFs are designed to be consistent across multiple platforms and operating systems, so you can’t just open them and start playing around. You need to import the specific page you want to work with. The import process converts the image to an editable format. After you import it, you can treat it just like a JPG file that you simply opened.
All of my patterns are downloadable PDF files, so you can use any block from any quilt pattern for any project!
Image Size vs. Block Size
The block size is the finished size of the quilt block that an image is appliqued to.
The image size is the size of the image to be appliqued onto that block. The image size will always be smaller than the block size, so that there’s room between the image and the edges of the block.
So, for the example in the video, the image size is the actual size of the cat drawing. The block size is the quilt block that image will fit into. My finished block sizes are always 10 inches. The images are usually 8-9 inches at their widest or tallest point, so they can fit in a 10 inch block with a little breathing room all around.
That Formula
I don’t want you to have to scroll through the entire video if you’re just reminding yourself of the formula. Here it is.
You can use this formula for reducing an image too. Maybe you want to scale the image down to fit into a 6 inch space on the front of a T-shirt? The same formula will work.
Here are links to all the Think BIG lessons. . .
Intro and Tools and Supplies – a look some samples of projects made with giant applique, plus an overview of any special tools and supplies you’ll need
Enlarging Your Pattern – how to figure out how big you’ll need it to be, and how to print giant template pieces
Tips and Tricks for Giant Applique – what do you do if the pattern piece is bigger than your fusible adhesive, if it won’t fit on your ironing board, and how to scale up your outline stitching
Most applique patterns use a lot of smaller blocks – but you can super enlarge your favorite and use it as the center block of a medallion-style quilt. For this bunny quilt, the corner blocks are my usual 10 x 10 inches, and that center block is 30 x 30 inches.
Or maybe you want to make just one giant block! The center of this quilt is 40 x 50 inches and the borders are 5 inches wide. If you want to match your dog as closely as possible, I recommend the Playful Puppies and More Playful Puppies patterns. They’ve got loads of templates that you can mix and match to create almost any dog breed!
I’ve always thought it would be really fun to create a nap quilt for a child using the Paper Dolls pattern and sizing it to be the exact height of your kid! 🥰
There are so many possibilities! Get ready to have fun!
Tools & Supplies
For the most part, the tools and supplies you’ll need for giant applique are the same as what you’d use for any regular applique project – with just a couple of exceptions.
Printer
You won’t be able to print giant patterns on your regular printer – and tiling is impractical because the designs have lots of empty space, which makes assembling the tiles confusing. It works GREAT to save your designs to a flash drive and take them to your local print shop or office supply store. Near me, the Office Max, Staples, and Kinkos all have large printers that are inexpensive to use. There’ll be more info on how to enlarge your patterns in a later lesson, but for now just know that you’ll need access to a large printer.
Fusible Adhesive
Usually I use printable sheets of Heat & Bond Lite because I hate tracing and love the ease of printing out my templates all ready for fusing down. That’s not an option for giant applique, but luckily you can buy Heat & Bond Lite off the bolt at most fabric stores, including Joann Fabrics. It’s just 17″ wide, but you can buy pieces as long as you need. (We’ll cover what to do if your design is wider than 17″ in a later lesson.)
Thread
I like to outline my giant applique with thicker-than-usual thread, so that the outline is scaled up like the design itself. For that I use Sulky 12 wt. thread. It’s the thickest thread that can go through a regular machine. I use black for all my outlining, and a single spool has a lot of thread on it, so it lasts a LONG time. If you want a range of colors in the same weight, you can look for Sulky Petites, which are smaller spools.
To handle the thicker thread, you’ll also need a bigger needle. 90/14 topstitching needles are perfect for the Sulky 12 wt. thread.
Intro and Tools and Supplies – a look some samples of projects made with giant applique, plus an overview of any special tools and supplies you’ll need
Enlarging Your Pattern – how to figure out how big you’ll need it to be, and how to print giant template pieces
Tips and Tricks for Giant Applique – what do you do if the pattern piece is bigger than your fusible adhesive, if it won’t fit on your ironing board, and how to scale up your outline stitching
I’ve been getting requests for an ABC quilt pattern for years – but I coulnd’t do it until I had at least one pattern for every letter of the alphabet.
I finally have that!
You can pull your blocks from any of my patterns that use square blocks. (That’s almost all of them.) Pull what you can from Shiny Happy World patterns you already have, and then you can fill in the gaps here.
Remember, individual block patterns are always Buy 4 Get the 5th Free – no discount code needed.
Now you just need a materials list and cutting instructions for the complete quilt – plus ABC templates sized to fit that 4-inch border.
Unlike the rest of my layout guides, this one only has information for one size. That’s because it’s constrained by the number of letters in the alphabet. My sample quilt is 70 inches wide x 80 inches tall. That’s just a little shorter than a standard twin size.
Of course, this isn’t the only way you can lay out an ABC quilt!
Want to make a smaller quilt? Without the borders, this is the same size as my basic Napping Quilt – my favorite size for the couch. Use the Simple Grid Layout Guide instead of this one. Applique the names on the back of the quilt, or maybe embroider them into the background of each animal’s block. There’s a free ABC hand embroidery pattern here.
Maybe you like the size but don’t want to bother with double borders? Combine them into a single 10-inch wide border and scatter the animal names all higgledy-piggledy on it.
Want to make a standard twin-size quilt? Increase the width of the top and bottom outer borders from 6 inches to 11 inches.
I’m working on similar guides for other layouts too! That way no matter what layout your pattern shows, you can easily use the blocks in a different design. Here’s what I have so far and what’s coming. . .
I’m working on similar guides for other layouts too! That way no matter what layout your pattern shows, you can easily use the blocks in a different design. Here’s what I have so far and what’s coming. . .
