People get stumped when it’s time to outline applique designs – and the more complicated the block, the more likely I am to get questions about how to approach that outline stitching.
Where to start?
There’s no right or wrong way – as long as you outline each piece, you’re good. But I do like to have all my lines connect (just like they would in a drawing) and I have a system that I use.
This system works for any block, using any pattern – but I’ll go over the specifics using this quilt block as an example. I loaded it up big. If you click on it you should get a larger version of the image so you can really zoom in on the details.
Here’s the order I used to outline applique pieces. . .
Start with all the pieces on top – that is, not overlapped by any other pieces:
hair
belt
shoes
Stitch all the way around each piece, then work your way out from those pieces:
dress top
arms
dress bottom
legs
face
As long as you always start with the pieces on top, you’ll always have lines to connect to. The best example of that in this block is the outlining of the face. The sides of the face tuck under the hair, and the sides of the neck tuck under the dress. So make sure the hair and the dress are stitched before you do the face and you’ll always have lines to connect to.
If you like that sample block that I used in this post – it’s part of the Paper Dolls quilt pattern. You get pages and pages of templates for different hair and outfits. It’s so much fun to mix and match them into your own designs!
Here are links to all my posts about outline stitching.
I get a lot of questions about how to choose fabric for a quilt.
I’ve got a post here with some tips for beginners on choosing what types of fabric to work with, and I include information with almost all of my quilts about the fabrics I used in my sample, but I realized I’ve never spelled out some general guidelines for choosing fabrics for a project – specifically choosing colors and prints.
Of course, choosing color is a pretty personal thing. 🙂 These are just the guidelines that I use to give my quilts their particular “look” and to make the blocks a cohesive collection.
First let’s look at the different groups I put my fabrics into.
Multicolor Prints
There are multicolor prints (fabrics that don’t “read” as a single color) which I hardly ever use. When I do, it’s often in a larger appliqué piece where the print makes sense, like this truck.
These fabrics are awesome and they make good quilt backs and doll clothes, but I rarely use them for appliqué, so I’m going to leave them out of this discussion.
If you really want to work with these kinds of prints, these two posts will help you out.
Using Fabric Print Wisely – this post shows how you can use prints like stripes to do some of the work for you in an applique project
Applique with Prints – this post has more info about choosing colors to pair with these multicolor prints
One-Color Fabrics
What I’m left with is lots and lots of fabulous monochrome fabric – which makes up the bulk of my stash. Within that group I have solids, batiks, and tone on tone prints (also called blenders).
When I choose fabrics for a quilt I work with these categories. I often start by choosing a category for my background blocks. I choose one of those groups and use those fabrics for ALL of the background blocks in a quilt. That makes the finished top look very cohesive.
Solids
This sample of the Lovable Mutts pattern uses solids for all the backgrounds. The quilting REALLY shows up on these solid blocks, so this is my favorite choice.
I’ve got fabric especially designed for this kind of background blocks in my Spoonflower shop. They’re 12-inch squares of solid fabric with easy-to-follow quilting lines printed right on the fabric – grouped in handy color palettes. You can find them all here.
Batiks
This sample of the Chirp quilt uses batiks for all the backgrounds. The quilting will tend to disappear in the dapply batik texture, so choose this if you’re not very confident in your quilting skills, or don’t want to put a ton of effort into the quilting.
The quilting won’t show as much as it does on solid fabric, but it will show up more than it does on a batik, so these tone on tone prints are a good middle of the road choice.
I design LOTS of blenders especially for my applique patterns, and they work for both the background blocks and for the applique – which means they’re very versatile fabrics to have in your stash.
Another option is to go for a more monochrome look. You can shop by color and get pale to very dark shades of the same color, all in different one on tone prints. Here’s an example of the Amethyst collection.
That Woodland Critters sample uses all Avocado Blenders for the background blocks.
Choosing all your background blocks from one type of fabric helps create a unified look right from the start. But what about the appliqués?
How to Choose Fabric for Applique Quilts
For choosing those I rely on The Rule of Two Out of Three.
I look at three categories, and I only choose fabrics that have contrast in two of the three categories.
Texture
This is the easiest. Look at those categories of monochrome prints and choose two different ones. If you have a batik background block and solid fabric for the bird appliqué, you have contrast in the texture category. If you have a solid background block with a tone on tone print for the appliqué, you have texture contrast. Here’s a good example of that. . .
Temperature
This is also mostly easy. Warm colors are fiery – red, orange and yellow. Cool colors are watery – blue, green and purple.
Things can get tricky with neutrals – there are warm greys and cool greys, for example – but mostly this is pretty straightforward. If you have a cool background and a warm applique fabric (like that cat block above), you have temperature contrast.
Value
This one’s easy too. Dark fabrics contrast with light ones.
It can be hard to read the value contrast, especially if your fabrics are different temperatures. If you’re having trouble, try this trick.
These fabrics look high contrast because one is warm and the other is cool.
Snap a quick photo of them on your phone, then use a black and white filter on them.
Whoa! They have almost the exact same value!
Let’s audition some fabrics. . .
Even though that green/orange combination above turned out to have the same value, they still pass The Rule of Two Out of Three, so I would still use them. They have no contrast in value, but they contrast in texture (solid vs. tone on tone) and temperature (warm vs. cold).
How about this combination?
This one has contrast in texture (solid vs. tone on tone), contrast in temperature (warm vs. cool) and contrast in value (dark magenta vs. light green). It passes on all three categories, so it will be a very successful block. And by that I mean it will have enough contrast that the appliqué won’t get lost on the background fabric.
Here’s another one.
I love red and orange together, but this combination fails. 🙁 They contrast in texture, but they are both warm, and both relatively dark. They only contrast in one category, so I’ll try again.
This one passes! It’s the same red (photographed at different times of day and not color corrected) but paired with a much lighter orange. They’re both warm, but now I have contrast in texture and in value, so I know this is a combination that will work.
So there you go – The Rule of Two Out of Three. It’s how I choose all the fabrics for my quilts.
Want an even deeper dive into what colors go together? Check out Color Theory 101.
Here are links to all the posts about choosing fabric.
I get a lot of questions about how to make a quilt hanging sleeve, so here (finally!) is a tutorial. 🙂
1. Cut a strip of fabric 4 inches wide and as long as the width of your quilt. You’re going to hem the edges and that will bring the sides of your hanging sleeve in a bit from the edges of the quilt – which will allow you to hide the hanging hardware if you want.
3. Fold the strip in half, right sides facing out. Press.
If you’re going to use a really fat rod to hang the quilt, you might want to fold it not-exactly in half, so that the sleeve pouches out a bit in back to make a little extra room for the rod. I always use a fairly slender curtain rod, though, so I just fold it in half.
4. Line up the raw edges of the sleeve with the raw edge of the top of the quilt and pin or clip in place.
I had to take a bit of a break from the Controlled Chaos while I made my daughter Jo a T-shirt quilt to take to school with her, but I’m back! I’m easing back into things with some simple wide stripes.
Ready to make block #7?
What You’ll Need
60 two-inch squares in color A (shown in blue)
40 two-inch squares in color B (shown in pink)
Instructions
Use 1/4″ seam allowances for all sewing.
Arrange your squares according to the diagram below and sew them together into rows.
Press all the seams. I’m pressing mine open for this quilt. I think it will make things simpler in the end.
Sew the rows together to make the finished block.
Here’s the exploded view. . .
Here’s what my seven blocks look like so far. . .
I’ve decided to make mine a largish lap-sized quilt for me to use on the couch. It’ll be 4 blocks wide and 5 blocks tall for a finished size of 60″ x 75″ – a little smaller than a twin quilt. And I’m going to hand-quilt it!
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 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!
This is the last video you need to learn how to make a scrap quilt. Mine is a Controlled Chaos scrappy quilt and you’re welcome to sew along. I’m sharing a new block every week.
The whole quilt is a simple collection of two-inch squares.
This newest video shows how to join those pieced strips together while keeping the seams lined up for nice, neat intersections.
Here it is!
See? Pins are your friends. 🙂
You’ll use this technique in all kinds of quilts – not just scrap quilts.
I specialize in designing quilts that have no intersecting seams (like this Buttonholes quilt), but most quilts have them and not getting a good intersection is the most obvious “mistake” in any quilt.
So any time you want your seams to line up – grab your pins!
In this video I show you how to chain piece quilt blocks for speedy piecing.
This is a really common technique in the quilt world, so I know a lot of you will be familiar with it already.
If it’s new to you – prepare for your world to be rocked.
Seriously.
It’s just amazing how much time you save by not snipping threads on each set of blocks as you go.
I don’t just use this technique for quilting. I use it any time I’m sewing more than one set of things together.
If I’m working on a puppy softie and I have four sets of paws, a tail and two sets of ears to sew up, I chain them all together. I do backstitch at the beginning and end of each of those sets – but I don’t cut the threads until I’m done with the whole chain.
Here’s the video. . .
See how easy?
This is the technique I’m using to sew up all those itty bitty blocks in the Controlled Chaos Scrappy Quilt-Along. I’ll be sharing the next block in that quilt tomorrow!
