Try this easy chevron quilt pattern. It’s free. 🙂
That’s right – FREE! And that doesn’t mean it’s some skimpy abbreviated form of one of my regular patterns. You’ll get everything one of my regular quilt patterns normally includes.
Complete instructions – including yardage requirements, cutting instructions, and assembly diagrams – for five different sizes.
Crib (48″ x 61″)
Nap (60″ x 72″)
Twin (66″ x 83″)
Queen (84″ x 94″)
King (108″ x 94″)
Detailed instructions with step-by-step photos showing how to assemble the blocks.
Instructions (and diagrams) for pieced backs for all the quilt sizes.
Links to videos teaching you all the skills you’ll need to complete the project – including basting, quilting and binding.
This is a very easy quilt – easy to cut, easy to sew, and easy to machine quilt. And it’s designed to make efficient use of fat quarters and all your scraps. Wait until you see how this one goes together!
Want the pattern? Here’s the link to download it!
If you like this free pattern, sign up for the Shiny Happy News! Members get a weekly newsletter full of sewing tips and tricks, free patterns, special discounts, and other things to make you smile. 🙂
Today I’m going to share a bit of problem-solving with you for your T-shirt quilts.
Most T-shirt designes are pretty well centered, with some room all the way around.
But sometimes the design of a T-shirt goes right up to the armhole, making it difficult to cut a square corner and get all the important bits.
Take, for example, this Fraggle design.
I cut this out as close to the arm seam as possible, but Mokey Fraggle is right up against the cut. The sleeve fabric was kind of yucky and worn there – so I definitely wanted to cut it away – but I didn’t want to lose Mokey!
I made the cut and did the interfacing as though there was fabric there. (I didn’t press that loose corner of interfacing – that would have fused it to the ironing board. I just left it unpressed while I fused the rest down.) Then I cut out the image – again pretending that there was fabric in that corner.
Of course, the next step is to sew in some real fabric to replace the pretend stuff. 🙂
I cut a strip of fabric big enough to cover the missing corner, laid it along the edge of the armhole cut, and sewed it in place with a straight seam.
Then I flipped the strip over the corner and pressed the seam flat (from the back so I didn’t smear the image).
Trim the corner to square up the block.
Then frame it out just like all the other blocks.
Problem solved!
I ran into the same issue with the Nyan Cat T-shirt.
And solved it the same way. 🙂
Here’s what the blocks look like so far.
I’m hoping to finish all the blocks this week, so next week will be joining, basting, quilting and binding. In my dreams I’m handsewing the binding while I watch Diane Gilleland’s T-shirt Quilt class and learn all the things I could have done better. (It looks amazing and it’s free! Sign up here and watch with me!) In reality I’ll probably be doing it in the car on the way to drop Jo off at school. 😛
Here’s a free felt coaster pattern so you can stitch up some fancy floral finery.
Coasters are a bit of an issue for me.
I have a glass of ice water within reach all day long. I have a lot of potter friends – so most of my cups and glasses are lovely to look at and delightful to hold, but completely uninsulated so they sweat like crazy.
I’m always seeing pretty, pretty coaster tutorials online – and I’ve made a few. But the fabric ones (which are what I love to make) just catch the water and hold it in place. They usually soak completely through, so instead of getting a ring on my furniture – I get a big blobby smear.
Then I had a bit of an epiphany. Maybe everyone else has already thought of this – but none of the tutorials I’ve read mention it and it was a new idea for me, so. . . what if I put something waterproof inside a coaster – to block the moisture from soaking through to the bottom? Of course! *smacks forehead* I could make some very pretty – and also completely functional – felt coasters! Happy dance!
Fast forward to today. My felt coasters are finally finished – and I have a free pattern for you!
These are not hard to make – they only use very simple stitches – but they take a lot of time. Luckily, they’re small and easy to schlepp around for some portable handwork to pull out at the doctor’s office, the park, on long car trips, etc.
What You Need for This Felt Coaster Pattern
You can find links to sources for all my favorite tools and supplies here.
1 1/2 sheets wool-blend felt for the coasters (I used licorice)
4 squares of waterproof fabric for the inside of the coasters (I used scraps from some art aprons I used to make, but you could use anything waterproof like an old raincoat or shower curtain liner)
small scraps of wool-blend felt in assorted colors for the flowers and butterflies
embroidery thread in colors to match the felt
Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy (optional)
freezer paper (optional)
size 8 embroidery needle (optional)
Thread Magic (optional)
So there you are! Download your patterns and gather up some felt and thread in pretty colors and start stitching! It’s fun – and the finished coasters are so, so pretty. 🙂
How to Make Them
Step 1
Download the base coaster pattern here and trace or print it onto a rough side of a sheet of Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy. I use Sulky Sticky FabriÂSolvy every time I work with felt. I love it!
Cut the four squares apart (leaving a little extra room around each square), peel off the paper back and stick the film to a square of felt.
Step 3
Embroider the design right through the stabilizer and the felt.
I’m going to applique most of the flowers and the butterfly, so all I stitched here are the stems, butterfly trail, and the small flowers all around the edges.
I used backstitch for the stems of the applique flowers with four strands of green thread (DMC #522). I used running stitch for the butterfly trail with three strands of periwinkle thread (DMC #156).
For the star flowers around the edges I used two strands of green (DMC #522) and a single stitch for each stem, and two strands of fuchsia (DMC #601) for the flowers.
You have a couple of options when you stitch those star flowers.
In this first photo, I stitched the stem up to the base of the asterisk, then stitched the full asterisk for the flower.
In this second photo, I stitched the stem up to the center of the asterisk, then stitched the rest of the asterisk around it, skipping the bottom stroke of the asterisk so it looks like the stem goes up into the flower.
Which do you like better? That’s what you do for yours. :Â-)
Step 4
Trim around the edge of your stitched coaster, right on the line.
Soak out the Sulky Sticky FabriÂSolvy in cold water for at least an hour and rinse clean with more cold water. Hit any stubborn bits with a kitchen sprayer – don’t rub the surface of the felt.
Let the pieces dry flat. Don’t wring, twist or even smoosh them. Just set them on a towel and let them dry overnight.
You can see a coaster with the stabilizer removed at the bottom of the photo. Look! Now I know exactly where each applique piece goes. The stitched stems and flight paths are great guides!
Step 5
Applique and embroider the rest of your design.
Download the applique patterns here and print or trace them onto the paper side of a sheet of freezer paper. One sheet has enough applique pieces for 8 coasters. Make a second set for a friend!
Iron the freezer paper to the felt and cut the small pieces out – cutting the freezer paper right along with the felt. That keeps your cutting accurate on such small pieces.
Peel off the freezer paper and use a swipe of glue stick to stick the flower where it goes on the coaster.
Use whipstitch and two strands of matching thread to applique each flower to the coaster, then add all the little detail stitches.
Here’s a detailed color and stitch guide and a super close-Âup photo of one finished coaster.
Oooh! Such a pretty felt coaster pattern!
Use two strands of thread for all stitching Â- the applique and the embroidered details.
Blue Flower
Whipstitch the flower with DMC #3846 and the center with DMC #726. French knots and lazy daisy stitches with DMC #726. Use straight stitches at the base of the lazy daisies with DMC #3746.
Yellow Flower
Whipstitch the flower with DMC #726 and the larger center with DMC #741. Satin stitch the small center with DMC #726. Straight stitch the pink lines on the petals with DMC #601.
Purple Flower
Whipstitch the flower with DMC #3746, large center with DMC #333 and tiny center with DMC #741. The orange French knots in the purple center are DMC #741. The blue French knots and straight stitches on the outer ring of the flower are DMC#3846.
Pink Flower
Whipstitch the pink flower with DMC #601. Lay the green bit so it overlaps the base of the pink petals and whipstitch with DMC #522. The orange highlights on the petals are lazy daisy stitches in DMC #741.
Sew the two layers together around two edges. I used whipstitch. Whipstitching felt edges is a tiny bit different from whipstitch applique. There’s a video here showing how.
Here’s where things stand right now on Jo’s T-shirt quilt. I’ve fused the interfacing and cut images from all the T-shirts in the stack, and I’ve got finished, framed blocks for eight of them.
Today I’ll show you how I’m framing the images to make uniform blocks.
The shirts I’m using in this quilt range from children’s XS to men’s XL. That, my friends, is a big range of sizes.
There are some amazingly complex T-shirt quilts out there that fit all those sizes together like a jigsaw puzzle. You can see some of them in this Pinterest board I’ve been building.
Frankly – the thought of planning that out made my head hurt. And then the cutting and piecing would have to be really precise and I would be quickly getting far away from the kind of quilts I like to make.
(One of the things I’m most eager to hear in Diane Gilleland’s class about T-shirt quilts is how she plans the layouts. Her T-shirt quilts have a lovely harmony and simplicity to them, and I can’t figure out how she does it just by seeing the finished quilts. I can’t wait to learn more about her approach! RSVP for the free video workshop happening on August 21 and 22 and take the class with me!)
Until I learn Diane’s magic secret – I decided to keep things simple.
1. I already own a 15 inch square ruler – so all the blocks will be 15 inch square blocks. Easy.
2. I cut the T-shirt images whatever size works best for the image. Then I add fabric around the image until it’s bigger than 15 inches. Then I use that handy-dandy ruler to trim it to the exact right size.
The T-shirt has interfacing fused to the back and it’s trimmed where I like it.
I hit my stash and pulled some blue that very closely matched the blue of the T-shirt.
My original plan was to use contrasting fabric for the frame – like pulling out the green of her tail or the orange of her hair – but in the end I decided that would be too busy. I want the focus to be on the T-shirt images, so my frames add a bit of extra texture (none of them are solids) without adding additional color.
I added strips all the way around the image until the block was bigger than 15 inches. I added strips to the top and bottom first, then pressed it and added strips to the two sides and pressed again.
You can add to the sides first and then the top and bottom. Or you can work your way around the block log-cabin-style. It doesn’t really matter – just get fabric on all four sides.
Press all your seams away from the T-shirt center. And press everything from the back so you don’t smear your image!
Here’s the framed block with my 15 inch ruler set on top so you can see the extra all the way around.
Now – position that ruler where you want it and cut around all four sides. I wanted my blocks off center – but straight – so I lined one of the ruler lines up with a seam between the T-shirt image and the frame so everything stays nice and straight. If you look closely (click on the image to zoom in) you can see that the one-inch line on the ruler is lined up with the seam on the right side of the block.
I think it would be fun to have the images at interesting angles in the quilt, but Jo wanted them straight. 🙂
And here’s the finished block!
You can see I added wider strips to some sides, and narrower to others. I don’t want the image centered in the block, so unevenness is good. Also – then I don’t have to measure anything. 🙂 The effect is even more noticeable in some of the blocks with smaller images. Scroll back up to the top of the post to see the rest of the blocks so far.
Tony the Tiger was the only image big enough to cut 15″ square with no framing – so he’s in there just just from the T-shirt. Everything else is getting at least some framing.
Next week I’ll be back with a post about handling T-shirts whose images go right up to the armholes.
As I mentioned yesterday – the main challenge in making a T-shirt quilt is that T-shirts are stretchy. Stretchy fabric is usually the LAST thing you would choose to make a quilt. It stretches – which makes precise measuring hard. And the edges curl when they’re cut which is really annoying.
So the first step is to make your stretchy T-shirts no longer stretchy.
For that I used interfacing.
Specifically – Pellon 906F. It’s the lightest weight interfacing I could find.
Here’s how the interfacing works. . .
The Pellon 906F is a fisuble interfacing. That means you iron it to the back of your fabric and it creates a permanent bond. You’re basically gluing a non-stretchy fabric to the back of a stretchy fabric – which makes the stretchy fabric no longer stretchy.
Clever!
I chose the lightest weight interfacing I could find because I didn’t want to make my fabric overly heavy or stiff. With the 906F it still drapes nicely – so that’s good!
Here’s the step-by-step. . .
Step 1 – Cut away the front of the shirt
I cut right up the side seams and across the shoulder seams, as close as I could get to the seams without being too crazy fussy about the whole thing.
Step 2 – Add interfacing
See the interfacing peeking out where the armholes were? That gives you a sense of how big I cut the piece of interfacing. From the back it’s just a big square of white fabric stuck to some blue fabric – not the most useful image.
Cut a piece of interfacing larger than the image on the front of your shirt.
Lay the shirt front face down on your ironing board.
Iron the interfacing to the back of the image. Follow the package instructions as best you can.
This involves slowly counting to ten over and over and over and over again. It’s very boring – but it’s not hard and it’s what makes the whole thing work. Just listen to some music or a podcast or watch TV while you do it. 🙂
Important note – the instructions for the Pellon 906F say to flip the fabric over after the initial fuse and iron again with steam from the front.
Don’t do that!
A lot of the inks and image transfers used on T-shirts will melt and smear if you iron directly on them. Instead I lightly spritzed the back all over with water and pressed the whole thing again until it was dry.
For the technique I’m using I’m not measuring at all. Easy peasy! I’m just cutting around the image in a way that looks good to me for that image.
And that’s it! The T-shirt is no longer stretchy. The cut edges don’t curl. And I have a nice, easy shape to frame out for the final block. Tomorrow I’ll show you that step – how I frame the images to get blocks that are all the same size. With no measuring!
Disclaimer – This is my first T-shirt quilt ever. I’ve made a lot of quilts and I’ve worked with knit fabrics – so I’m not starting from nowhere. But I am in no way an expert! If you want to learn from an expert, sign up for Diane Gilleland’s class here. She makes some BEE-YOO-TEE-FUL T-shirt quilts and I’m definitely taking the class myself. It’s free if you RSVP for the live version!
We’re a T-shirt-wearing family. All three of us wear T-shirts all the time – the geekier the better. (Our favorite source for great designs is Tee Fury. They have a new design every day – available for only a day. Fun!)
Jo has been saving her outgrown T-shirts for years, with the thought that someday I would make her a T-shirt quilt with them.
Someday is suddenly NOW. She’s going away to school in a couple of weeks and has requested a T-shirt quilt for her bed.
I have never made a T-shirt quilt.
A couple of months ago I saw that Diane Gilleland is offering a video class showing how to make T-shirt quilts. Awesome!
Diane is a terrific teacher and the author of the wonderful book Quilting Happiness. You can read my review here.
And her T-shirt quilt class is FREE if you watch it live. Even more awesome!
But first I’m going to muddle through one on my own because Diane’s class is happening the last two days before Jo heads off to school and I know I’m setting myself up for major stress if I try to actually make the entire quilt in two days.
And guess what?
I’m going to share the muddling through part with all of you! I always get such nice emails when I share my mistakes publicly and this has the potential for some truly spectacular failures. 🙂
I’ve done a little bit of research about T-shirt quilts, but mostly I’m winging it. I figure I’ll learn all the good stuff in Diane’s class. 🙂 But here are a couple of key things I’ll be doing/tools I’ll be using. . .
Interfacing
T-shirts are stretchy. Stretch is bad when you’re trying to do precise piecing and end up with nice, straight lines. Plus the cut edges will curl up and make me crazy when I’m trying to sew them together.
So the first thing I’m going to do is make my stretchy fabric not stretchy anymore. For that I’m using fusible interfacing.
I don’t sew clothes or structured bags much, so I’m no interfacing expert. I decided to use Pellon 906F – a very lightweight fusible interfacing. I took a totally wildly random guess and bought 6 yards for my quilt. I’ll let you know later if that was enough. 🙂
I’ll write a post showing what I do with the interfacing.
Totally Random Sizes
The pile of shirts ranges from children’s XS to men’s XL (she added a couple of Alan’s old shirts to the stash too). We want to keep the images on the front of the shirts as intact as possible, so I decided to frame each image with scraps of regular fabric. I’m a little worried about mixing wovens with knits, but it’s what Jo asked for and I’m willing to give it a try. I’ll let you know how that works.
The finished blocks will all be 15 inches square. Why? Because I already have a 15 inch square ruler and I’m going to use it to make trimming the blocks to their final size quick and easy.
I’ll share how I standardize the sizes of the blocks in its own post.
Jo wants a twin-sized quilt, so I’ll be making 30 blocks. I think she has 28 T-shirts so I’ll fill in the last couple of blocks with fabric of Jo’s choice.
Tune in tomorrow for the post about the interfacing!
Today, I’m going to show you my 3 favorite ways to join a new yarn without tying a knot. These techniques can be used:
When you’ve run out of yarn, and want to join a new ball of the same color
To change to a new color according to the pattern (although the color change won’t be as clean as with this color change technique)
To add new yarns when you’re making a scrappy project- great for leftovers!
Russian Join
The Russian Join allows you to connect all of your yarns before you begin crocheting. You’ll want to check out this tutorial for a full how-to.
This technique is great if you have a lot of small pieces of yarn. You can join them in advance and then just keep crocheting! The result in joining up little pieces is a fabulous magic ball!
‘Double Up’ Join
This is the technique I usually use when crocheting. You basically crochet a stitch or two with both your old and new yarns, then drop the old yarn and continue with just the new yarn. It’s very secure and quick. Visit this blog post for details!
The disadvantage is that those couple of stitches are a little thicker (due to the 2 yarns), but that doesn’t bother me much!
Spit Splice
This technique is the cleanest, but only works for wool yarns. And yes, you use spit! Read the full tutorial here.
This can be done either in advance or while you’re crocheting.
Which is your favorite?
Or do you prefer to tie a knot? It’s okay!
If you’re going to tie a knot, I recommend the following:
Tie the knot as you go, not in advance with the yarns
Start crocheting with your new yarn, then tie the knot after you’ve done a few stitches
Turkey work is an unusual embroidery stitch that gives you a special effect. If you make long loops you can get a hairy or fringy look. Shorter loops can be trimmed to look like the pile of a rug or shorter hair.
Neat!
Turkey work stitching isn’t difficult, but it does require a bit of focus so you don’t lose track of what you’re doing. I tend to mumble to myself while I do it. . . flat stitch, loopy stitch, flat stitch, loopy stitch. . .
Here’s what I’m talking about.
See what I mean?
You can work this stitch on flat embroidery – you’ll often see it as the center of flowers, for example.
But I use Turkey work most often on little felt softies. It opens up a whole range of possibilities for hair, manes, tails, bushy eyebrows and more. 🙂
You know I love working with felt and designing things for kids – so that was an easy yes! 🙂
I love Christmas tree ornaments that also hold gifts! This mini stocking is about 6 inches tall – perfect for holding a gift card, some candy, a small toy, some jewelry, or any other little gift. Fun! It’s easy to make too! It’s all hand-sewing, so it’s perfect for toting around with you to stitch a little bit at a time. And the whole thing uses just one easy stitch – whipstitch. Ready to make it?
What you’ll need. . .
1/2 sheet wool-blend felt for the stocking. I used Babbling Brook from my shop.
scraps of wool felt for the reindeer. I used Tahitian Sunset for the face and ears, Sandstone for the antlers, and Barnyard Red for the nose.
embroidery thread to match the felt (I used DMC thread in 502, 3858, 3032, 816, plus black #310 for the eyes and mouth – also available in my shop)
small bit of baker’s twine or other yarn for the hanging loop
Instructions
Download the pattern here. Print or trace the pieces onto freezer paper. Fuse them to your felt and cut out the pieces. Leave a little extra seam allowance wherever the line is dotted (the base of the ears and antlers). That extra bit will tuck under other pieces for a neat finish.
Arrange the reindeer pieces on one stocking piece. The antlers and the ears should tuck behind the head just a bit.
Whipstitch the antlers and ears in place with 2 strands of matching thread. (Here’s a video showing how.)
Whipstitch the face and nose in place with 2 strands of matching thread. Using 4 strands of black thread, embroider the eyes and backstitch the mouth.
Use the baker’s twine to make a hanging loop in one corner. Done!
Like all Shiny Happy World designs – you’re welcome to sell items you make with my patterns, but please don’t sell or distribute the patterns themselves.
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. 🙂
There are a lot of different stitches to choose from when you applique felt – buttonhole stitch and running stitch are especially popular. But my very favorite stitch to use is whip stitch.
It’s fast.
It’s easy.
I love the way it looks.
Want to learn how? Here’s a video!
See how easy?
I stitched the whip stitch sample in the video with contrasting thread so you could really see the stitches, but usually I use thread that matches the applique pieces, so mistakes and uneven stitches won’t be very visible. (Sneaky.)
Applique with wool felt is one of my very favorite things to do!
It’s all done by hand, so it’s work that’s easy to carry around with me for quick stitching in free moments here and there. And the wool felt and smooth embroidery thread feel so nice in my hands! Plus the colors are so rich and pretty!
Give it a try with this fancy felt coffee sleeve. It uses whip stitch to applique all the felt pieces, and blanket stitch to sew the edges of the sleeve.
