I love getting all the mileage I can out of my quilt patterns – using them for lots of other projects besides quilts.
One of my favorite things to make is felt coasters. I’ve got them scattered all over my house, in lots of different designs. The cats you see above are some of my favorites!
It’s super easy.
Choose the design you want to use and print that pattern page out at 40% size. Any square block from any of my patterns.
Your print window may look slightly different than this (it’s different for every computer, printer, and operating system) but it should be similar.
Look for something like that “scale” entry. It will probably default to 100%, but you can change it to anything you like. Change it to 40%.
From this point on, follow the instructions you’ll find at this post showing how to make some cute bear coasters. (And if you want to try out the technique – those bear patterns are free.) You can use those instructions to make cute coasters from any of my square quilt block patterns. Just reduce the pattern size to 40%. 🙂
Here are several free patterns that work with my basic 10-inch applique squares – no resizing needed!
Here are several free patterns that work with just some simple resizing. This post about making coasters has info about resizing an applique pattern that can be applied to any of these projects.
If you’e using an electric cutting machine like a Cricut. . .
Upload the file to your machine.
Resize if needed. (To fit a block that finishes at 10 inches square, the image should be 7.5 inches wide.)
Ungroup the pieces and assign colors
Cut the belly and the face from the lightest color fabric
Cut the shoulders, ears, and eye patches from the darkest color fabric
Cut the eyes and nose from solid black
Cut.
Step 2
Trace or print the pattern onto the paper side of the fusible adhesive.
I use printable Heat & Bond Lite fusible adhesive so I just printed out the page. No tracing!
The image has already been reversed, so just trace or print. If you’re tracing, be sure to trace the facial features and placement guidelines too. You’ll need those for Step 5.
Step 3
Rough cut around each shape and fuse it to the back of your fabric.
Note – if you’re making your panda in realistic colors, use the large eye template pieces to make light-colored eye backings do the dark eyes show up on the dark eye patches. Use the small eye templates for your solid black eyes.
If you’re making a panda in fantasy colors, use the large eye templates for your solid black eyes, and discard the small eye templates.
There’s a video here with more information about helping make sure dark eyes show up well on a dark background.
Step 4
Cut around each piece neatly. Cut directly on the solid lines.
Step 5
Remember back in Step 2 when I told you to make sure you traced the facial features? Now you’re going to do that. Hold the face up to a window so the light shines through it. You’ll be able to see all the dotted placement lines, and the adhesive will stabilize the fabric so you can trace on it without it crinkling up.
Trace the lines to show where all the applique pieces are placed – the eye patches, eyes, nose and mouth are especially important. The belly piece is one you can probably place well without a guide.
Optional – trace the lines to show where pieces overlap, to help you position the ears on the head and the head on the shoulders. These placement lines are less important – you can play around a lot with the placement of these parts.
Step 6
If you’re doing Quilt As You Go (I did) then you can quilt your block before adding the applique. So easy!
Cut your background fabric and a piece of 100% cotton batting 11 inches square.
Layer the block with a piece of 100% cotton batting. Quilt any pattern you like!
Have fun! And share a photo of what you make! You can share it in the Shiny Happy People group or tag it with #shinyhappyworld on Instagram.
If you like this free pattern, sign up for the Shiny Happy News! Subscribers get a weekly newsletter full of sewing tips and tricks, free patterns, special discounts, and other things to make you smile. 🙂
Cut a piece of fabric big enough for the full four inch square to fit flat in a hoop. A seven inch square of fabric should work just fine.
Stitch the design on your quilt label. I used 4 strands of thread and two simple stitches – backstitch for all the lines, and satin stitch for the solid eyes and nose.
If you want to add a date – or maybe a name – there’s a free alphabet embroidery pattern here – with letters that are relatively simple to stitch, with no serifs, curlicues, or extra-tight curves. 🙂
When you finish stitching, trim the fabric so there’s about an extra inch all the way around the part you want to show as the quilt label. Fold about 1/2 inch under on each side and press.
Position the label where you want it (I always put mine in the lower right corner) and pin or glue it in place to hold it secure while you stitch it.
Stitch the label to the quilt back all the way around the edge, being sure to only stitch through the quilt backing. Don’t let your stitches go through to the front of the quilt. I like to use ladder stitch.
That’s it!
It doesn’t take long and it’s a really nice finishing touch. 🙂
Here are all my posts about how to bind and finish your quilt.
A lot of people have questions about how to applique dark eyes on a dark face. It’s really important for the eyes to show up well, and dark on dark fabric tends to hide them!
Of course – living in Appalachia – I had to make a black bear.
But black bears are tricky!
Black eyes didn’t show up every well on the almost-black fabric I chose for the bear face.
The solution is to make an extra layer in a lighter color to back the eye.
Black bears usually have a cinnamon-colored snout, so I chose the same fabric to go behind the eyes. If your applique pattern doesn’t have a contrasting snout color (maybe you want to make a black cat from this pattern?) then just choose a slightly lighter shade of the face color.
I don’t recommend white. It will usually make your finished face look frightened. 🙁
Here’s what to do.
Using a scrap of your fusible adhesive, trace the eyes again. Fuse that to the back of the fabric you want to use to define the eyes.
When you cut them out – cut them a little bit bigger than the eyes you’ve traced.
I’ve cut mine with a little less than an extra 1/8 inch all the way around. You don’t have to measure it – you really just want a sliver of that color showing.
Now – fuse those pieces in place – along with all the other pieces on the block except the black eyes.
DO NOT FUSE DOWN THE BLACK EYES YET.
I know. It looks a little creepy at this point.
I usually outline all my applique pieces in black thread – but this is the exception. Stitch down the eye backings using matching thread.
If you do it now, you can be a little wobbly with your stitching. There’s no black eye for the wobbliness to show up against. If you fuse the black eye before you do the outlining you have to be very careful to keep your stitching right on that sliver of background color showing – and that would be hard.
Here’s a close up view where you can hopefully see my stitching. It’s just a simple straight stitch.
NOW you can applique the dark eyes and do all the rest of the outline stitching in black thread.
Whew! Much less creepy. 🙂 And look how nicely her eyes show up – without looking frightened.
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.
Quilt layouts can be very simple – or very complex.
When I design a quilt pattern I always make up a sample – usually a simple grid.
But if you think of my quilt patterns as patterns for collections of blocks that you can put together any way you like – it opens up all kinds of other possibilities!
In this video I show a few different quilt layouts you can use for almost any of my patterns. It’s a long video because I’m talking you through the whole process, but you can scroll past the video to see lots of photo examples with shorter descriptions.
For each layout style, you’ll find a downloadable PDF with fabric requirements, cutting instructions, assembly diagrams and more for six different sizes in this post – Quilt Sizes and Supplied Needed (I Did All the Math).
This is a long post with lots of photos. Don’t want to scroll through the whole thing? Use these links to jump right to info and examples of each layout style. . .
Most of my quilt patterns default to this, and you can simplify the ones that don’t by just leaving out any half or double size blocks. Here’s an example using the Wild Flowers quilt pattern.
This kind of grid is the easiest to sew up. Just sew together all the blocks in each row, then sew all the rows together. Easy peasy.
You can fancy up the quilt design a little bit by adding in some blocks from other patterns (almost all my patterns are designed for 10-inch squares so it’s easy to mix and match) or – if it’s a quilt with faces – by adding some Fancy Doodads accessories.
This is a great way for you to add some of your own creativity, but still have a quilt that’s really easy to assemble.
What if you’re in a hurry?
Checkerboard Grid
You can make a quilt where you only applique half the blocks. The other blocks are just quilted. Here’s a great example of that with an Arctic Chill quilt made by Lisa.
And here’s an example of the Woodland Critters quilt assembled with alternating plain blocks.
Grid with Sashing
Maybe you want to add sashing to your quilt!
That’s really easy to do – it’s still a simple grid assembly. The hardest part is the math to figure out how the sashing changes the number of blocks needed and how much fabric you need to buy – and I’ve done all that for you in this post.
Here’s a fairy traditional grid and border layout. I used the Noisy Farm pattern but left out all the half blocks, and added sashing.
You can also just add sashing between rows or columns instead of sashing around each block. I built that design into the Dinosaurs pattern.
But you can do that with any pattern!
Your stripes can go tall too, instead of wide. Here’s the morning glory block from the Wild Flowers pattern repeated in tall stripes with sashing between them.
Wide Stripes
Of course, you can set your quilt in long stripes without adding sashing – and you don’t have to have that stripe filled up with applique either. Look at the fun striped quilt Linda made with the Mix & Match Monsters pattern!
Wonky Faux Sashing
You can also add wonky faux sashing to any quilt.
All the blocks are off-kilter and irregular so it looks like it would be really hard to assemble, but actually it’s still just a simple grid. Here’s an example made by Kathleen of a bunch of blocks from the Funny Faces Quilt Block of the Month Club (plus a couple of chickens of her own design), set with wonky sashing.
Now, on to the most complicated thing you can do to vary the setting of your quilt (which still isn’t really hard to do). You can break up that simple grid.
You can do that in two ways.
Alternate Grid with Double Blocks
The first way is designed into some of my patterns – using double-size blocks. You can see that in the Sea Creatures pattern.
Alternate Grid with Half Blocks
Double-size blocks are pretty hard to do if the pattern doesn’t already include those sizes. But it’s REALLY EASY (and even more effective) to add some half-size blocks to any pattern.
Word blocks like these are one of my favorite ways to add half blocks to a quilt pattern that doesn’t include them. There’s a free ABC applique pattern here that you can use to add sounds, names, birth dates, and more. Here’s a version of the Bunches of Bears pattern where I added words.
Here are several free patterns that work with just some simple resizing. This post about making coasters has info about resizing an applique pattern that can be applied to any of these projects.
The suggestions here are really just the tip of the iceberg. If you do a unique quilt layout I’d love to see it! Share a photo in the Shiny Happy People group. 🙂
Find links to all the posts about pattern size and layouts here.
Some of them are Santas and trees and things specific to the holiday – but a bunch of them are just cute everyday items that are fun to hang on your Christmas tree. I wanted to come up with another way to use those fun everyday patterns, so I decided to make an easy felt garland.
I picked the cupcake pattern – because I love cupcakes and it was my birthday and I thought it would make a really cute party decoration that could be used year after year.
Stitch up however many you want, in whatever colors you like.
I made a dozen cupcakes in all different colors (using up a bunch of my felt scraps – an added bonus.)
Then you just string them together!
Cut a length of thin cotton yarn (make it a lot longer than you think you need) and thread a big-eye needle with it. Run the needle through the back layer only of your ornament. Make sure to pick a spot near the top of your ornament so the piece doesn’t tend to flip upside down when you hang it. It will always want to hang heavy-side-down.
Finished!
Don’t tie any knots or anything – that way you can slide the ornaments along the string as needed to fill any space.
I like mine so much I decided to keep it up all year! I hung it across the opening to my studio so I see it every day. 🙂
Make a party garland! Decorate a nursery or a child’s room! Or make one for yourself. 🙂
Stitch up some easy crocheted Easter eggs with this free pattern.
These little eggs are super fun to stitch up – and a great way to use up your smallest yarn scraps.
The pattern includes instructions for a plain egg, a striped egg, and a spotted egg.
Are you new to crochet and you don’t think you have the skills? Not to worry! These crocheted Easter eggs are a really easy pattern – just increasing and decreasing – nothing to attach. Plus – the links within the pattern go to tutorials showing how to do each step.
If you’re just getting started, start with the plain egg. It’s a great way to learn the basic stitches – single crochet, increase, and decrease.
After you have one under your belt you can try some simple color changes.
Have fun!
You can use any size yarn for this pattern – but if you’re doing stripes or spots, make sure both yarns are as close to the same thickness as possible. Use the hook size recommended on the yarn band – or one size smaller if needed to get a nice tight stitch.
Round 4 [Sc twice in next st, sc in next st] 6 times (18)
Round 5-6 With SC, sc in each st (18)
Round 7 [Sc twice in next st, sc in each of next 2 sts] 6 times (24)
Rounds 8-10 With MC, sc in each st (24)
Round 11 With SC, [sc2tog, sc in each of next 2 sts] 6 times (18)
Stuff the egg.
Round 12 [Sc2tog, sc in next st] 6 times (12)
Round 13 [Sc2tog] 6 times (6)
Round 14 Use the drawstring method to close up those last six stitches.
Fasten off, pulling the knot towards the center.
Done!
Polkadot Crocheted Easter Egg
For the spotted egg you’ll be changing colors for just a few stitches at a time. You do that just like the color change in the striped egg, EXCEPT you don’t need to cut and knot your yarn between those changes. Just drop one color and pick up the new color without cutting the yarn. The color you’re not using will just carry on the back of the work. This is called “stranding” and there’s a video showing how to do it here.
MC is your main color. SC is your second color.
Start out with a sloppy slip knot.
With MC, ch 2.
Round 1 Sc 6 times in 2nd ch from hook (6)
Round 2 Sc twice in each stitch (12)
Round 3 Sc in each st (12)
Round 4 [Sc twice in next st, sc in next st] 6 times (18)
Round 5-6 [With MC, sc in next 4 sts. With SC, sc in next 2 sts] 3 times (18)
Round 7 With MC [sc twice in next st, sc in each of next 2 sts] 6 times (24)
Rounds 8-10 [With SC, sc in next 3 sts. With MC, sc in next 3 sts] 4 times (24)
Round 11 [Sc2tog, sc in each of next 2 sts] 6 times (18)
Stuff the egg.
Round 12 [Sc2tog, sc in next st] 6 times (12)
Round 13 [Sc2tog] 6 times (6)
Round 14 Use the drawstring method to close up those last six stitches.
Fasten off, pulling the knot towards the center.
Done!
And here’s a sweet little lavender version of Blair Bunny. She’s traded her Halloween ghost costume for a pile of cute crocheted Easter eggs!
I’ve received a couple of emails lately asking if you can use cuddle fleece to make Dress Up Bunch dolls.
Yes you can!
Update – the cuddle fleece I used to carry has been continued. You can find more info here (including a link to a good substitute). You can also use polar fleece. If you go with polar fleece, I STRONGLY recommend getting the no-pill kind.
This is actually a really versatile pattern and I’ve used all kinds of different fabrics for it!
Just to test the fleece I made the Beatrice Bunny you see in that top photo. 🙂
I used camel cuddle fleece and the resulting bunny is super cuddly and soft. The slight stretch of the fleece makes a bunny that’s exceptionally squishy. 🙂
A couple of things I did different with the fleece. . .
Use bigger eyes – the pattern calls for 9 mm safety eyes but I used 12 mm. The slight pile of the cuddle fleece tends to enclose the edges of safety eyes making them look smaller – so going up a size is generally a good idea.
Use thicker thread to embroider the mouth – the pattern calls for embroidery thread but I used thin cotton yarn. The reason is the same as the bigger eyes – I didn’t want the thinner embroidery thread to get lost in the pile of the fleece.
I used an 18 mm pink triangle safety nose. No special reason – I just didn’t even know about the noses when I designed the original doll. I wanted to try it here and I love it!
Be careful not to overstuff your softie! The slight stretch of the cuddle fleece allows you to pack in more stuffing – enough that the clothes will be too tight.
What other fabrics have I used?
I’m glad you asked!
Quilting Cotton
I’ve used quilting cotton for most of the samples. It works just fine.
I used flannel to make my Pip the Cat and I love how he turned out!
Be sure to use good quality flannel so your doll doesn’t pill after just a few snuggles.
Stretchy Knit Fabric
Yes – you can use stretchy knits too.
That requires a little special handling – mostly using a stretch needle and being careful not to overstuff your doll so she still fits into her clothes. 🙂 I share all the tips in this post – plus a link to a source for special “doll skin” fabric used for Waldorf dolls.
Faux Fur
Yep – you can use faux fur too!
Here’s Spot the Puppy made in some really spectacular faux fur. I love this guy and named him Rumples.
One caution when using fur – the furrier the fur, the bigger it makes the doll. It might make the regular clothes not fit anymore.
Rumples is stuffed pretty tightly into his Play Clothes.
So there you have it! Lots of great fabric options for making Dress Up Bunch dolls!
Happy stitching!
Best, Wendi
The Dress Up Bunch is a collection of adorable rag dolls with a wardrobe better than mine! All the dolls can wear all the outfits for terrific play value! Shop the pattern collection here.
I finished my design wall (you can get instructions here) and immediately started sewing some blocks to pin up there.
You see – I have a specific project in mind and I’m sooooo eager to get to it!
This is the door between my office and my husband’s office.
I love that barn door – and from the very beginning we planned to cover it with a quilt. Basically, I’m going to make two quilts – one for the front and one for the back, and I’m going to hand-sew the door into them (like a model on Project Runway) with a strip of solid fabric all around the thickness of the door.
I want to improv piece the quilts – but I’ve never really done that before. So I want to practice a bit and try some things out before I start on the big door project. And for that – I really wanted to have a design wall. It helps so much to be able to see the design straight on as it’s growing!
For my practice pieces I’m making some placemats. Each one will use a different basic shape so see what I like – and what’s fun to do. 🙂
I’m starting with stripes. I love stripes!
Here are my rules for this one. . .
No rulers. I’ll use my rotary cutter and scissors – but no rulers, either for measuring or cutting. I want my lines to be slightly wobbly/crooked.
A limited color palette of rich grey mixed with pastels. (All the pastels are all from my Rainbow Sherbet fabric bundle. Such pretty colors!)
Big Stitch quilted with really dense stitching. Yay! I haven’t done any big stitch quilting for months and I’m itching to get back to it.
The first thing I did was measure out a space on my design wall – a little bigger than a placemat needs to be – and mark the four corners with pins. That way I can see what space a need to fill.
Then I started cutting and sewing. Remember – no rulers. I just grabbed some pastel scraps, cut a chunk of grey, cut them into strips, and sewed them together. This is so much fun! Once a finished a little chunk of pink, I moved on to other colors. Here’s a super short video showing each little chunk going up onto the wall.
After I was happy with all the chunks, I sewed them together. Easy peasy – nothing fancy.
At the end of the video you see it hooped up in a square frame all ready for stitching, stitching after one evening, and stitching after two evenings. So here’s a little more info about that part of the process.
I’m using Sulky 12 wt. thread for all the quilting. That’s those little spools you see on top of the basted work.
The frame I’m using to held my work is called a Q-snap frame. There’s more info and a link to a source for it in that post about Big Stitch quilting.
It’ll probably take me about a week to do the quilting on this piece. It’s small (standard placemat size) but I only get to do hand work for an hour or two most evenings.
