Everyone is a Wee Bit Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day. Celebrate the day with this darling mini quilt to hang in your Ackfeld Manufacturing table frame or on the wall.
Usually I suggest poly mesh type stabilizer on these mini quilt projects, but on this one we have a lot of two colored lettering. Maintaining registration is absolutely necessary when doing two colored lettering so the stronger stabilizer is suggested. The lettering is broken down into four separate sections in order to maintain registration as well. Even though many software products and machines will allow you to reorganize the color stops to reduce the number of color changes please do not do that for this design. I do not think you would be able to maintain the registration.
Step 1:
Cut 2 9” x 10” rectangles of the background fabric, one for the front and one for the back of the project. Cut 1 9” x 10” rectangle of Battilizer® or low loft batting. Cut and tautly hoop a piece of the cut away stabilizer to fit your hoop. This design will fit in a 12” x 7” hoop, but the samples are shown in an 8” x 12” hoop as this machine does not have a 12” x 7” hoop.
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Step 2:
Load design SPDMQ01 into your machine, with white thread stitch the placement line.
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Step 3:
Spray adhesive on the wrong side of the block front fabric and position over the placement line so that the fabric exceeds the placement line by ½” on all sides; run color stop (CS) 2 in water soluble thread to tack down the fabric.
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Step 4:
Follow the color chart through CS 10 to stitch the embroidery.
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Step 5:
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Remove the hoop from the machine; do not unhoop; turn the hoop over; spray adhesive on the Battilizer® and place over the back of the embroidery and align with the front fabric.
Step 6:
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Return the hoop to the machine and run CS 11 in water soluble thread to tack down the back fabrics. Switch to white thread to run CS 12 to quilt the block.
Step 7:
Lay the ¼” marks of a quilter’s ruler along the water soluble thread stitching and trim all edges to ¼”.
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Step 8:
Your center block will now look like this.
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Step 9:
Cut two Battilizer strips 2” x 10” and cut 2 2” x 7 ½”; cut 4 strips of border fabric 2” x 10” and 4 2” x 7 ½”.
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Step 10:
Make quilt sandwiches of the border quilt pieces, by placing one fabric strip right side down, spray the Battilizer® with adhesive and align with the fabric strip; spray the top of the Battilizer® with adhesive and place the corresponding fabric strip right side up on top of the Battilizer®. Do this to all four border pieces.
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Step 11:
For the corner blocks cut 8 3” squares of fabric and 4 3” squares of Battilizer®.
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Step 12:
Hoop cut away stabilizer in a 4” hoop; run CS 1 as a placement line.
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Step 13:
Spray adhesive on a fabric square and position over the placement line; run CS 2 in water soluble thread to tack down the fabric; run CS 3 in green and CS 4 in gold.
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Step 14:
Remove the hoop from the machine, do not unhoop; turn the hoop over and with spray adhesive; position the Battilizer® and the back fabric on the back of the hoop.
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Step 15:
Return the hoop to the machine, run CS 5 in water soluble thread to tack down the back fabric and Battilizer®; run CS 6 in white to quilt the block. Repeat steps 12 through 15 once for a second corner block.
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Step 16:
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Horizontally flip the corner block design in your machine with the mirror icon.
Step 17:
Repeat steps 12 through 15 for the two remaining corner blocks. Trim all seam allowances to ¼”.
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Step 18:
From your sashing and binding fabric cut 2 1” strips; cut 2 2” strips; cut 2 2 ½” strips all the width of the fabric.
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Step 19:
Press the 1” strips with Magic Sizing; fold the 2” strips in half lengthwise and press after spraying with Magic Sizing. Put a top thread on your sewing machine that matches the sashing, use a bobbin thread that matches or coordinates with your backing fabric.
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Step 20:
Place a 1” strip on the bottom of the right side of the center block; place a folded 2” strip on the top of the center block raw edges even; have the strips extend over the top and the bottom of the block about ½”. Use wonder clips or pins to keep all edges even, they were removed in this photo for you to see the layers better.
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Step 21:
Stitch the three layers together with an accurate ¼” seam allowance. A stitch length of 3mm and a walking foot are recommended.
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Step 22:
Press the bottom sashing strip out away from the center block; clip or pin a 10” border strip to the side edge of the 1” sashing strip only. Stitch the back sashing strip to the border with an accurate ¼” seam.
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Step 23:
Open out the border away from the center block. The two seam allowances should line up without overlaps or gaps. Press them flat.
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Step 24:
Press the top sashing strip over the seam allowances and edge stitch the folded edge over the seam allowances.
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Step 25:
Repeat Steps 20 through 24 to attach a 10” border strip with the sashing to the left side of the center block.
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Step 26:
Trim the excess border and sashing strips from the top and the bottom of the block.
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Step 27:
Join the corner blocks to the 7 ¼” top and bottom border strips using the same techniques. Arrange the corner blocks so that the shamrock curves to the left on the left side of the quilt and curve to the right on the right side of the block.
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Step 28:
Lay your bottom and top completed border strips over the center block just to be sure that the sashing strips will line up with the sashing on the center panel when they are joined to the quilt.
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Step 29:
Join the completed top and bottom borders to the center panel using the techniques in Step 20 through 24.
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Step 30:
Square up your mini quilt and trim off the excess sashing from the sides.
Award winning Digitizer, Embroidery Educator, Author and a Consultant to the Industry, Pat Williams has 30 years of experience in the embroidery industry. Pat has won multiple awards for her digitizing expertise including the 2007 Impressions Awards Grand Championship, Best of Show as well as the 1st and 2nd Place Awards. Pat’s love of digitizing has afforded her the opportunity to write numerous articles for Impressions magazine in the United States and Images Magazine in Europe. In 2001 Pat was named “Embroidery Educator of the Year.” For many years Pat taught digitizing seminars at the ISS Shows in Long Beach, CA and for Compucon software. She now resides in Tucson, AZ.
