But my favorite method is actually to add fake WONKY sashing to my blocks. That makes blocks that dance around in your quilt, tipping slightly in different directions. It makes the appliques look like they’re peeking out of slightly Seussian windows. 🙂
It’s really easy to do! Here’s a video showing how. . .
Here are those dimensions. . .
Cut your background blocks 10 1/2 inches square
Cut your batting 13 inches square (you’ll trim it later to 12 1/2 inches square)
Cut your strips for the sashing 2 1/2 inches wide
And here are the rest of the links I promised. . .
Of course – once you make some wonky sashing to frame your applique, your next step will be to sometimes make your applique bust out of its frame – like these silly monsters.
I get a lot of questions about how to stop seeing through fabric applique – especially on my frog and monster patterns that have big googly eyes.
When you use fusible adhesive and layer a light color (like white) over a boldly patterned fabric, the print below can show through.
In this video I show you how to minimize that show-through. It’s really easy!
I rarely use light-colored solids, so this isn’t often an issue for me – but it does come up when I want to make big googly eyes. 🙂
I actually don’t mind seeing through the fabric applique a little bit (it can be kind of cool to be able to see how something is made) so sometimes I’ll use a lighter-weight interfacing like you see me use in the video.
If you want more complete coverage, I recommend this Heat & Bond Medium Weight fusible interfacing. It’s one step thicker than the one I use in the video – still nice and flexible, but with better hiding properties. 🙂
Now that you know how to stop seeing through your fabric applique, want to practice?
You can get that pond frog pattern here, a tree frog here, and there are fun googly-eyed monster patterns here, here, and here.
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.
There are a LOT of free lessons here at Shiny Happy World.
Hundreds!
That’s awesome – but sometimes it can be a little overwhelming.
Do you want to learn to make a quilt using my super easy Quilt As You Go method, paired with painless applique with fusible adhesive?
Then I’ve got the perfect free workshop for you!
It pulls all of my QAYG and applique lessons together in one place, and arranges them in the best way for you to learn the whole process from start to finish. We cover everything from fabric and supplies, to picking a pattern, and all the steps of the process – including binding your quilt!
This class is for you if. . .
You’ve never made a quilt of any kind.
You’ve made pieced quilts but have never tried applique.
You’ve made applique quilts but want to try a new method.
You’ve made pieced and applique quilts but you’ve never tried Quilt As you Go.
You already know how to make all kinds of quilts and you want to make one with some new friends.
This class will take you step by step through everything you need to know to make a cute and cuddly quilt!
You work through the lessons at your own pace – using any pattern you like. There are even several free block patterns you can download to give it a try!
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.
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.
For years I’ve had people ask me about adding sashing to a quilt pattern from Shiny Happy World.
That’s an easy question.
Yes!
You can always modify any pattern to add (or take away) sashing.
Sometimes they have another question. How does adding sashing to a quilt change the yardage they need to buy?
Well – that’s a whole other question that requires a much longer answer. 🙂 So long that the best way to give it to you is as a printable download. It has fabric requirements, cutting guides, and assembly diagrams for six different quilt sizes with sashing and borders. Download it here.
First – let me clarify. I say almost any quilt pattern because these measurements will only work for square blocks. If you’re adding sashing to a quilt with double blocks or half blocks, you’ll need to do a little extra math for that. But the measurements in that PDF work for any of my quilt patterns that have 10 inch square blocks – and that’s almost all of them. 🙂
And one more reminder – all of these measurements only work if you have an accurate 1/4 inch seam. If you don’t have a quarter inch foot on your machine, I strongly recommend getting one. It will make your life sooooooo much easier. 🙂
Find links to all the posts about pattern size and layouts here.
I’m moving right along on my version of the Noisy Farm quilt with sashing added, and I realized this is the perfect time to share a little tip with you about pinning long seams.
I’m not very bossy about pinning most of the time. Some people pin, some don’t, and I’m mostly a live and let live kind of person. 🙂
But when it comes to long seams (like the ones attaching those looong sashing strips to rows) you’ll find that pinning – and actually pinning in a very particular way – will save you a lot of headaches.
Here’s the problem. If you just slap a long strip on your strip of blocks and just start sewing without pinning – there’s a really good chance that when you get to the end of the long seam, one of those pieces is going to be significantly longer than the other. This happens even if you use a walking foot and even if you’re really careful about keeping your tension even. It just happens.
You know what keeps it from happening?
Pins. 🙂
I’ve got a specific method I use to pin longs seams. I call it Divide and Conquer.
Here’s a seam I just pinned. (Actually clipped. When I pin already-quilted layers together I prefer to use sewing clips. They distort the fabric less.)
I loaded up a really large image size here so you can click on it to see it even bigger on your screen.
Those numbers show you the order in which I placed those clips.
First I start by clipping the ends – 1 and 2. That way I know that my ends are going to be perfectly lined up.
Next I want to divide that space in half (Divide and Conquer) and I place the clip right in the middle. That’s #3.
That leaves me with two large spaces – the one between 1 and 3 and the one between 3 and 2. I divide those spaces in half by adding clips 4 and 5.
Finally, I divide all the remaining spaces in half by placing clips 6, 7, 8 and 9.
It’s always the same – I start by securing the ends, then just keep dividing the remaining spaces in half over and over again until my clips are close enough together to take it to the machine.
I’ve gotten a lot of questions lately asking for suggestions for the background colors of the Noisy Farm quilt pattern.
The cover sample you see above is from before I had fabric bundles in my shop, and most of the fabrics I used are no longer available.
One of the things I love about the way I do fabric bundles now is that you can use any bundle for any quilt. Here’s an example of three quilts that all use the Warm Neutrals fat quarter bundle for the animals – but different bundles for the background colors.
Changing just the background colors really changes the whole feel of the quilt – and I love them all!
So when people ask for suggestions for background colors for the Noisy Farm pattern – I want to tell them they can use anything! Go totally bright with the Solid Rainbow! Go a little more subdued with Box of Crayons! Go baby sweet with Rainbow Sherbet! Go natural with Green Batiks! Want even more suggestions? Go to the Noisy Farm pattern listing and look at the additional photos. There are a bunch showing finished quilts that other people have made with different fabrics than my samples.
For my new version of the Noisy Farm quilt I used Rainbow Sherbet for the background blocks. I went totally wild with the animals and using the Gingham Play fat quarter bundle. Gingham always says “farm” to me and I can’t wait to make the animals in fantasy colors.
One more change – I made this one a silent farm. 🙂 I left off the half-blocks with animal sounds and added sashing. I get a lot of requests about adding sashing to a Quilt As You Go quilt. There’s a tutorial here showing how you can reset (almost) any of my quilt patterns with added sashing. I even did the math for you for all the sizes. 🙂
If you’ve made any of my quilt patterns using a different color scheme – please share! Seeing all the different versions of my patterns makes me Muppet-arms-flailing happy – and it’s a great resource for your fellow makers out there to see different options. 🙂
Some of my quilts have what I call a “broken grid” layout. You’ll also see it called an “alternate grid.”
Both of these terms refer to quilt layouts that aren’t the standard checkerboard-style grid, with all the seams running in straight, uninterrupted lines from edge to edge.
But I get a lot of questions about how, exactly, I quilt these quilts. Do I quilt around each square individually? Do I turn the corner to go around a block that’s interrupting my straight line?
Nope and nope. 🙂
At this point in the process I have my entire quilt sewn together and I want to do everything possible to avoid turning any corners while I’m quilting, because that means turning the entire mass of the quilt, and that is not fun.
So what do I do?
I hop over the block that’s blocking my way.
This video shows what I mean by that.
See?
Just hop right over those pesky blocks. 🙂
Do be sure to backstitch or knot – whatever technique you use to secure your threads – any time you have to stop or start quilting.
I’m using an example of one block from the Shiny Happy Houses quilt pattern, but you could adapt this idea in all kind of ways! I list a few possibilities at the end of the tutorial.
Step 1
Trace or print all your pattern pieces as usual. You’re going to do three things with your door piece.
Print or trace your door onto the fusible adhesive – just like normal.
Also trace your door onto a piece of freezer paper.
Also trace your door onto the fusible adhesive house piece – right where you want it to go.
Step 2
We’ll start with making the door itself.
Cut the door piece out of the freezer paper a little bit bigger all the way around. Do this neatly – it’s just to make the door a smidge bigger than the door opening. Mine is a little bit more than an extra 1/8″ all the way around.
Layer two pieces of door fabric right sides together and fuse the freezer paper door piece to the wrong side of the top layer.
Use the edge of the freezer paper as a guide and stitch almost all the way around the door, leaving a little bit open for turning on the side where the “hinges” would be. Don’t forget to backstitch at the beginning and end of your stitching.
Step 3
Trim around the door, leaving a small seam allowance.
Clip away the excess completely at the corners.
Step 4
Turn the door right side out through the opening. Smooth your curves, poke out your corners, and tuck the seam allowance at the opening inside and press the whole thing nice and flat.
I’ve got my turning stick going into the opening here so you can see where it is. 🙂
Now set the door aside for a bit.
Step 5
Fuse the house piece and the “behind the door” piece to the back of their fabrics.
Cut out the house piece right on the line – including cutting away the door that you traced.
Cut the “behind the door” piece right on the line at the bottom of the door. Leave a little extra fabric at the top and sides.
Here they are from the front after cutting them out. It’s fun to fussy cut something cute for the “behind the door” piece. 🙂
Step 6
Peel off the paper backings, layer all the pieces together, and fuse.
The “behind the door” piece should be tucked behind the door opening so that it peeks out.
Step 7
Outline all the pieces as usual.
You’ll only need to stitch around the door opening on the house piece – that stitching also secures the unicorn piece behind it.
Step 8
Sew the door in place by stitching down the side with the turning opening.
No hand sewing needed!
Finished!
Add a button doorknob if you like. 🙂
You can play with this idea in so many ways! Add shutters to the windows! Make a camouflaged “door” in a treetop (using the same fabric as the rest of the treetop) and hide a little bird or squirrel in there! I know someone out there has used the Shiny Happy Houses pattern to make a castle. Add a functioning drawbridge!
The possibilities are endless, and I can’t wait to see what you all make!
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.
