On Wednesday I showed you how I made the padded hearts for the baby quilt I'm making, so it would only be fare to show you the small hearts that go into the border too. I made these the exact same way as I did the small hearts for the valentines mini quilt I made.
I started out by piecing two different, 10 inch x 2½ inch strips of fabric together pressing the seams open. I made a small heart template the same way as I did for the larger hearts (you can see how HERE) and traced 20 hearts on fusible applique, I used Wonder Under. After I had all my strips sewn, and hearts cut out, I pressed the applique hearts (glue side down) on to the back of the pieced strips right in the center, making sure the inside- and outside points are right on the seam and the bottom of the heart facing towards the inside.
The rest is very simple, I cut out the hearts and they were ready to be used. By placing the hearts points towards the inside of the strip, you end up with mirror image hearts, same fabrics, but they look different.
Then it was time to sew the hearts onto the strips of white fabrics. To make sure I got the hearts exactly right and spaced exactly the same, I placed the strips right next to each other, and pined the hearts at an angle, I would then peal back the paper from the fusible applique and place them on the fabric, and press them with a really hot dry iron.
To sew them on, I used a blanket stitch. This part was a bit tricky, spacing the stitches just right, especially in the center of the heart, and the bottom point. Not all of them came out perfectly but most came ended up looking just fine.
To hide the thread tails, I pulled the threads to the back, tied them in a knot and pulled it through the existing stitches. Because the heart is fused to the white fabric, there was no way of hiding them between the layers, and I did not want to leave the threads to show, since its all white, I don't want the black threads to show up when quilting.
These strips are for the side borders and I still have to get the top and bottom done.
This part is quite time consuming, since I'm stitching the blanket stitch quit slow, making sure they end up exactly right.
Linking up to can-I-get-a-whoop-whoop over at Confessions of a fabric addict.
Happy quilting.
2 comments:
These look lovely Marelize! I like the way you made them from two fabrics :)
They're so cute - and thanks for sharing your process! Whoop whoop!!
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