A couple of weeks ago I sent out a survey asking readers which block from each of my quilt patterns you’d like to see as an individual pattern. Your responses were awesome! I’ll be working over the next several weeks to release the patterns you chose – and I’m starting with the one that was most clearly a favorite.
I had so much fun with the Bears in the Hills project that I immediately needed another way to play with felt applique and embroidery. I had been having glimmers of an idea about using traditional quilt patterns as felt applique and I thought it would be fun to do that as a frame around one of my applique patterns.
It was so much fun to make that I decided to put together a tutorial showing how to make the frame. I want you to be able to use it in combination with any of my applique patterns you already have. I’m always looking for ways you can get more use out of your library of patterns. 😄
So here we go!
This layout works for two different possibilities. If you want the full rectangle, use a 12″ x 18″ sheet of felt. That’s a standard frame size I know for sure you can get at Michaels because I checked over the weekend. 😄
If you want just a square frame around your square image, ignore the blue striped parts of the image and use a 12″ x 12″ frame – also a standard size.
What You’ll Need
One 12″ x 18″ sheet of felt for the background. I highly recommend wool-rayon blend or bamboo felt. Don’t use acrylic felt – it will pill and look grubby before you even finish making it.
Yoiu can find links to sources for all my favorite tools and supplies (including felt!) here.
Assorted felt colors for the other parts. I used the following colors. . .
ruby red slippers (background)
grape jelly (purple triangles)
blue snow (blue stripes)
sandstone (cat)
Tahitian sunset (cat stripes)
black (cat nose)
shocking pink (polkadots)
Thread to match all the applique pieces.
Thick black thread to embroider the eyes and mouth.
Other thick thread for fancy embellishment. (I used fancy rayon thread. I love how the shine looks against the wool felt.)
Glue stick to hold the applique pieces in place.
Optional – I like to use a Q-snap frame for this kind of handwork, so I bought a couple of extenders for my 17-inch frame so it could go all the way to 20 inches. I also used some cheap muslin as a base for my felt so I didn’t need to catch the felt in the clamps.
That’s it!
Prep the Pieces
You’ll need to cut some strips, triangles and circles from your felt.
For the triangles, cut four strips of felt 1″ wide and 12″ long. From each strip, cut 1″ squares. You need a total of 40. Cut each square in half on the diagonal to get 80 triangles.
For the blue stripes, cut 8 strips 1/4″ wide and 12″ long.
For the pink polkadots, cut nineteen 1/2″ circles. (I buy mine pre-cut from Woolhearts on Etsy.)
Choose your pattern for inside the frame and print it at 80% size. I used one of the cats from the Cuddly Cats quilt pattern, but changed his eyes to happy sleeping eyes. There are also a bunch of free patterns available here. Cut out all the pieces. (I like to print mine on freezer paper to make it easier to cut out the pieces accurately.)
Put It All Together
I started by gluing my large background sheet of felt to some cheap muslin so I could easily hoop it without covering up any of the stitch area. Here you can see my piece in its hoop.
I used a couple of batting scraps under the clamps to give them more to grab onto, since the muslin was pretty thin.
Next I started to arrange the cut pieces onto the background felt. Here’s the plan. . .
Each square in the grid is 1/4 inch. I don’t like to mark on felt, so I used a ruler as a guide to position my pieces.
Here you can see that I’ve laid the ruler across the bottom of the background piece so that the top edge of the ruler is exactly 3 inches up from the bottom edge of the felt. That’s where I lay down the purple triangles in a pinwheel arrangement. I originally positioned one triangle in each inch of the background felt, but I photographed this after I finished all the stitching – which draws up the width a little bit. (You can see that the finished width is now a smidge less than 12 inches, which throws off the alignment of the triangles a bit – but you get the idea.)
Once you get the bottom row of triangles in place, it’s easy to build out the rest of the pinwheel frame. When you’re happy with how it’s all laid out, glue each piece in place with a swipe of glue stick.
Use the ruler as a guide to position all the skinny blue stripes as shown in the diagram and glue in place.
Position your face. I shifted mine a bit to the right, just to make things more interesting.
Sprinkle some polkadots in the background and glue them down too.
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.
Darius is the new Funny Faces Quilt Block of the Month Club pattern – just released today! (Darius means “maintains possessions well” which I think is the perfect name for a dragon.)
If you’re not in the club, click here to join. You’ll get instant access to the Darius pattern, plus all the other lessons and patterns in the clubhouse.
Want to see how to assemble that block? It’s easy!
Every month (on the 15th) members get a new pattern for a fun applique quilt block.
The blocks are all sized to finish at 10 inches square – so you can join them together into a funny faces quilt, or mix and match them with my other quilt patterns. They’re so much fun to play with!
This is Paxton Penguin – he’s the first block in the club, available to members right now. Isn’t he a cutie?
Here’s another version – in classic black and white.
You don’t have to make a quilt. You’ll also get free patterns for lots of other projects you can make with a single quilt block – pillows, tote bags, receiving blankets. placemats, and more. 🙂
The club includes complete video instructions for Quilt as You Go and applique with fusible adhesive – my favorite way to make quilts.
As long as your membership is active, you’ll have access to the virtual clubhouse where you’ll download your new pattern every month, find all the video lessons, ask questions, and chat with other club members – and share photos of your finished funny faces!
It’s going to be so much fun!
The current club pattern is always the first pattern in this section of the shop. You can join any time EXCEPT the last day of the month. That’s my change-over day to switch from the old to the new pattern every month. 🙂
There’s a new free applique pattern for you! Merry Christmas!
This adorable elf pattern is the same size and style as the other free Christmas applique patterns (10 inch finished blocks). There are five now! (You’ll find links to all of them at the bottom of this post.)
Trace or print the pattern onto the paper side of the fusible adhesive.
I use printable 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 too. You’ll need those for Step 4.
Step 2
Rough cut around each shape and fuse it to the back of your fabric.
Leave a little bit extra all the way around - a little extra extra (at least 1/4 inch) where there’s a dotted line, like the top of the shoulders and the base of the ears.
Step 3
Cut around each piece neatly. Cut directly on the solid lines.
Leave a little seam allowance on the dotted lines - those are the seam allowances that will tuck behind other pieces.
Step 4
Remember when I told you to make sure you traced the facial features in Step 1? Now you’re going to use that. Hold the face up to a window so the light shines through it. You’ll be able to see the eyes, nose and mouth, and the adhesive will stabilize the fabric so you can trace on it without it crinkling up.
I traced just inside the eyes, and directly on the nose and mouth.
Here you can see all the tracing I did – without the light shining through.
Step 5
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!
If you’re making a one-block project, go ahead and finish it up!
If you’re making a bunch of elf blocks to join into a quilt - have fun!
What can you do with just one block pattern? Tons of things!
Check out this page I’ve been slowly building – 100 Things to Do with an Applique Pattern. There are links to a bunch of free patterns you can use with your applique pattern to make bibs, pillow covers, tote bags, and more! 🙂
Here are all the free Christmas applique patterns so far.
If you’re looking for a different fun Christmas quilt pattern check out this post. It has a bunch of free patterns for little signs that you can add to a Shiny Happy Houses quilt to turn it into a North Pole quilt. 🙂
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. 🙂
Several years ago my mother-in-law made us a fantastic flannel rag quilt. We use it all the time, and every time I look at it I think that it would be super easy to add applique to that style of quilt.
I finally did it!
And it was just as fun and easy as I thought. 🙂
I made mine using the Bunches of Bears quilt pattern, but you could use any quilt pattern you like. All the square quilt blocks in my own patterns are already sized for 10 inch blocks. If you’re using someone else’s pattern you may need to enlarge or reduce the images.
So let’s go!
My quilt is nap sized – 50 x 60 inches – perfect for using on the couch. It’s 5 blocks wide and 6 blocks tall and the blocks all finish at 10 inches.
You can resize the pattern by changing the size of the blocks or by changing the number of blocks. 🙂
I used ten flannel colors (one of each color in the Dash Plaid collection from Dear Stella Fabrics) and bought one yard of each.
I prewashed my flannel. I think people don’t usually do that for rag quilts, but flannel is notorious for shrinking a lot and I didn’t want the shrinking to distort the applique. Don’t use fabric softener in the wash – it can resist the fusible adhesive. Dryer sheets are fine.
Each block is three layers of flannel, so you’ll need to cut 90 blocks, each 11 inches square. You can get nine from one yard of fabric.
Sneaky tip – if you have some ugly flannel that you can’t figure out how it got into your stash, cut 30 of the squares out of that and hide it in the middle of your layers. 🙂
Applique 30 of the squares using any method you like. I used my favorite fusible adhesive method. There’s a video tutorial here. I used Heat & Bond Lite printable fusible adhesive sheets and regular cotton here. You could use flannel for the appliques too if you like, but I wanted to play with the contrasting textures. 🙂
When you position your faces, line up the bottom edge 3/8 inch up from the bottom edge of the block. That way, when you sew the blocks together using 1/2 inch seam allowance, you’ll catch the bottom edge of the applique in the stitching and it will be nice and secure.
Fuse the face into place.
Layer a second square of flannel behind the one with the applique (both facing right side up).
Stitch down all the edges on your applique. Outlining through both layers of flannel adds just a little bit of poof and dimension to your block – not as much as quilting with batting, but similar.
I used the “scribbly” method of going around each bit three times with regular weight black thread and a simple straight stitch. There’s a post here with more detail about that, and one here with more info about using a heavier weight thread if you prefer that.
After you get all 30 blocks appliqued, it’s time to sew them together. This was actually the hardest part, because it’s backwards from any other kind of sewing you’ll do normally.
Add a third layer of flannel to each block, this time with the right side facing the back of the quilt. (It’s going to become your quilt back.)
Using 1/2″ seam allowance, sew two blocks wrong sides together so that the seam allowance is on the right side of the quilt.
Here’s what it looks like from the back.
See? That last layer of flannel makes a nice quilt back, and you have a nice clean seam.
I joined all of my blocks into rows of five, then sewed those rows together for the finished quilt.
The intersections can get very bulky, so I snipped into the seam allowance 1/2″ from each edge and sewed my crossing seam through that slit so I wasn’t stitching the seam allowance down.
And look – my seam secures the bottom edge of each bear, just like I planned. 🙂
I found it helpful to use my quarter inch foot, but adjust it out to 1/2 inch for sewing all those layers together.
I also lengthened my stitch to 3.0 and reduced the pressure on my presser foot to keep the layers from creeping. If you can’t make that adjustment on your machine, just use a lot of pins or clips, as if you were sewing napped fabrics together.
Once all the blocks are sewn together, sew all the way around the outside edge of the quilt, one half inch in from the raw edge.
Now it’s time to snip all those seams.
Snip 1/2 inch apart all along all the seam allowances, almost up to the stitching line. Be very careful not to cut into your stitching. If you slip and snip it, repair it now by sewing over the snipped seam.
If you’re trying to snip with regular scissors, you’ll need to take a LOT of breaks. They’re really not designed for this kind of work.
If you can afford to buy a special set of snips just for this kind of work, it is absolutely worth it. I tried several brands and the Fiskars Easy Action Tabletop Rag Quilt Snips were by far my favorite. They have a spring action, so their default setting is open, which saves a surprising amount of strain on your wrist. They’re super sharp, and the blades are slightly serrated, so they really grip the fabric well, helping them cut right up to the tips of the blades without “pushing” the fabric out at all.
Even with the fancy snips I took a break between snipping the horizontal and vertical seams. It took about two hours total.
Don’t forget to snip around the outside edges too.
When you’re done snipping, throw it in the wash and tumble dry.
Ta daa!
All those snipped edges fray in the wash and you get a really soft, fluffy ridge between each block. This blanket is just begging for someone to snuggle under it.
If you make an applique flannel rag quilt, we’d love to see it! Post a photo in the Shiny Happy People group so we can all oooh and aaah. 🙂
Find links to all the posts about pattern size and layouts here.
Stacey and I both have really terrific monster classes on Craftsy. The Shiny Happy World sale code doesn’t work on them, but Craftsy has sales all the time and if you use these links you’ll get the current sale price.
Stacey’s Design Your Own Monster class is fantastic – my favorite of all her classes. Get that class here.
My Cute Quilt-As-You-Go Applique Monsters class includes my Mix & Match Monsters pattern. It’s so much fun to make! Get that class here.
A lot of people have pulled the little mouse from the Noisy Farm quilt pattern to use in other quilts – but not everyone wants to buy a pattern with twelve different farm animals just for the little mouse!
I’ve been getting a lot of requests lately for the mouse as his own little pattern.
You can use it on its own – that mouse would be adorable peeking out of a pocket. Or you can use it combined with other quilt patterns, as shown in the image above.
Important note – the pattern only includes the mouse – not the cat. The cat is just there to show the two ways you can use the mouse pattern in your quilt blocks.
I didn’t just write up the pattern – I also recorded some new video tutorials especially for this little guy!
This is the first pattern I’ve ever done where I also include a link to download an SVG file of the pattern pieces – for those who have cutting machines like Cricut and Silhouette.
This video shows what to do with that file (for a Cricut Maker) once you’ve downloaded it. Heads up – it’s a long one.
If you don’t use a cutting machine, that’s fine. The pattern includes the regular pattern pieces for printing or tracing and cutting by hand.
Once you’ve got all your pieces cut, here’s how to assemble the little guy. I show how to put him on the edge of the block, and also how to make him peek out from behind another applique critter.
Finally – there’s the outlining. I know a lot of people will see that face and think NO WAY. I don’t like hand-stitching and that’s too small to do on the machine.
Not so!
Of course you can stitch the face by hand, but you can do every bit of it on the machine – no fancy embroidery features needed. Here’s how I do it on mine, just using regular straight stitch.
That’s it!
Get the pattern here and start adding adorable little mice to all your projects. 🙂
I get a lot of emails from people asking for advice choosing quilt colors. I always point them to the Shiny Happy People group where they can see many, many different quilts made with my patterns – usually using different colors than what I used in my samples. Really – seeing a finished quilt is the very best way to imagine it in different colors!
So I’ll be making more of an effort to show my quilt patterns in new color combinations – just to show as many options as possible. 🙂
I recently remade the Noisy Farm quilt, using it as an example to how you can add sashing to any of my quilt patterns. While I was at it – I changed the colors too!
Here’s the original quilt in a crib size.
And here’s the new version.
In addition to adding the sashing – I used radically different colors!
I made the original sample before I had fabric bundles in my shop, so it’s not easy to say exactly what fabric packs they’d use now, but the Warm Neutrals would be the best choice for those natural-colored animals. The backgrounds are mostly greens and blues, so the closest match would be the Green Batiks and Blue Batiks.
The new version uses the Rainbow Sherbet bundle for the background blocks – pretty pale pastel solids. They really do look like soft sherbet colors. 🙂
For the animals I went totally UNnatural with all kinds of fun colors and a wobbly, hand-painted gingham print. Here’s a close-up view of a silly pink sheep with a little turquoise mouse popping into the frame.
For the sashing I used Hash Dot in linen, also Michael Miller Fabrics. I liked how it has a slightly barn-ish feel while still balancing nicely with the soft pastel background fabrics. Sorry – I don’t sell that one in my shop, but you can search for Linen Hash Dot and lots of online sellers will pop up.
So there you go! New colors and a new layout for a totally new look for a favorite quilt pattern.
Want to know how to add that sashing? Here are the posts you’ll need for that.
