Enjoy the season with this ITH Easter Bunny Appliqued Mini Quilt. The center block is appliqued, embroidered, and quilted in the hoop. The sashing, borders and bind are stitched at your sewing machine.
Cut your fabrics to the sizes listed in the materials list. Cut a corresponding Heat N Bond Lite® piece for each of the 4 applique pieces and fuse to the fabrics following the manufacturer’s instructions.
Step 2:
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Tautly hoop the stabilizer and run color stop 1 (CS 1) as a placement line for the fabrics.
Step 3:
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Spray adhesive on the Porcelain background fabric. Place it over the placement lines so that the fabric exceeds the placement lines by ½” on all sides. Run CS 2 in water soluble thread.
Step 4:
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With Ecru (1460) thread run CS 3 as a placement line for the left end on the egg.
Step 5:
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Peel the Heat N Bond Lite® paper backing from the Sand applique and spray a little adhesive on the back of the applique. Position it over the placement lines and run CS 4 as a tack down stitch.
Step 6:
Remove the hoop from the machine, do not unhoop. Trim the applique as close as possible to the tack down stitches and iron in place.
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Step 7:
Using the same techniques as in Steps 4 through 6 and using CSs 5 through 8 stitch the right- hand egg end and egg center appliques.
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Step 8:
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Follow the color chart for CS 9 through CS 13 to stitch the details and satin borders on the egg.
Step 9:
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Using the same techniques as Steps 4 through 6 use the next two CSs to place and trim the bunny applique.
Step 10:
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Follow the color chart through CS 27 to embroider the details of the bunny, flowers, and lettering.
Step 11:
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Remove the hoop from the machine, do not unhoop. Lay the hoop face down on a flat surface. Spray adhesive on the low loft batting and position over the back of the embroidery so that the batting exceeds the original placement lines by ½” on all sides. Spray adhesive on the back Porcelain fabric and align over the batting.
Step 12:
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Return the hoop to the machine and run the final tack down stitch in water-soluble thread. This picture shows you why we use water-soluble thread for the main tack-down stitches. Due to the pull on the fabric by all the stitches in the design, the original tack-down stitches moved inside the mini quilt. If these stitches show after you have joined and sashed your mini quilt, they can be removed by rubbing them with a damp cloth or sponge.
Step 13:
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Run the final CS in a thread that matches your background fabric to quilt the block.
Step 14:
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Lay the ¼” mark of a see-through ruler along the outside tack down lines and tri all sides of the quilt block to a ¼” seam allowance.
Step 15:
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Cut 4 13 ¼” x 2.5” and 4 11 ½” x 2.5” strips from your border fabric. Also, cut 2 13 ¼” x 2 ½” and 2 11 ½” x 2 ½” strips of low loft batting. Make quilt sandwiches from these strips by spraying adhesive on one side of a batting strip and adhering a corresponding strip of fabric to it. Spray the other side of the batting with adhesive and adhere another corresponding fabric strip to that side. Repeat for all batting and fabric strips.
Step 16:
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Load your sewing machine with invisible thread at the top of the machine and in the bobbin. Select a wide zigzag stitch with the spacing at 4 to 4.5 mm.
Step 17:
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Butt an 11 ½” strip next to the side of the quilt block, having the strip extend a little beyond the quilt top on each end. Zigzag the border to the quilt block without overlaps or gaps. Repeat on the other long side of the quilt block.
Step 18:
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Trim the excess border strips from both ends of the quilt block.
Step 19:
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Stitch the 13 ¼” border strips across the top and bottom ends of the quilt block in the same manner as you attached the side borders in Step 17. Trim the excess border even with the side borders.
Step 20:
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From the 1/3rd yard of Blue Quilting Chambray cut from the width of the fabric:
From the 1/3rd yard of Blue Quilting Chambray cut from the width of the fabric: a. 1 1 ½” strip for front sashing b. 1 1 ¼” strip for the back sashing c. 2 2 ¼” strips for binding Spray the sashing strips with Magic sizing or spray starch. Fold the long edges to the center and press.
Step 21:
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The sashing strips can be stitched with a straight stitch, but I prefer a Serpentine stitch as it blends in nicely with the stippled stitching of the quilt block.
Step 22:
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Lay the narrow sashing strip over the vertical zigzag seams on the quilt back, extending the sashing strip to approximately ½” over the top and bottom of the quilt block. Stitch down both sides of each sashing strip with invisible thread and the Serpentine stitch.
Step 23:
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Turn the quilt right side up. Stitch the wider sashing strip over the vertical seams in the same manner.
Step 24:
Turn the quilt the wrong side up. Stitch the narrow sashing strips across the horizontal zigzag seams in the same manner. Turn the quilt right side up and stitch the wider sashing strips across the horizontal seams in the same manner.
Step 25:
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Measure 2” from the inside of the sashing strips to the outside of the quilt and trim away the excess sashing and borders. Bind the quilt using your preferred method.
Step 26:
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Hand stitch a hanging sleeve ½” below the top of the mini quilt. If you do not know how to make a hanging sleeve see our article Attaching a Hanging Sleeve to a Mini Quilt. This hanging sleeve was cut 3 ½” x 11 ½”.
Step 27:
Feed the hanging sleeve unto the quilt frame. Congratulations, your ITH Easter Bunny Applique Mini Quilt is complete.
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.
