Welcome to SewVeryEasy, my name is Laura.
And do you have any of that fabric that's just too
pretty to cut up? Well, I have a project that can
showcase that fabric and you will leave it in big
pieces. When you are done you are going to have
a beautiful quilt because we're going to treat that
fabric as art pieces, like a piece of art that you would
put on your wall. However, this is a quilt, and it takes
nice big pieces.
I'm going to start with six fat quarters, and you
might need a little bit of extra fabric just to fill in
some little spots.
With your big pieces of fabric, just straighten them up
and make sure all of the edges are straight.
It doesn't have to be square; they can be
rectangular. These are 17" by 22" because that's
what the fat quarters squared up to be.
This is a little bit shorter than 17" by 22", but as long
as all the edges are nice and square, that's all you'll
need to do to start.
Now we're going to consider this art and this is going
to be wall art. Your surface is going to be the wall.
If you can get a big flat surface, this will definitely
help. If you can get a large mat or put a couple of
mats together, it'll save your surface from your pins.
Now we're going to take these large pieces, put them
on the wall, and we're going to overlap them, filling
a very big space.
The first thing I'm going to do is take the piece of art
that I like best.
It will be in the middle of where all of the wall art is
going to be.
Then I will place my second piece.
From there, I'm able to place the pieces of
fabric, overlapping and underlapping,
until I have all of the pieces the way I want them.
Now just keep overlapping/underlapping. Stick some
in, stick some on the outside. You just need to have
your entire surface covered. And you can follow your
cut lines to keep the pattern straight. And you just
need to fill up the entire surface.
If there is a place that is left blank, you will need to
fill it, so just make sure the entire surface is covered
and it's pleasing to the eye. If you want, you could
put a piece on crooked.
It's very important that your fabric
is pressed and flat.
Now we need to frame each piece of art. I'm going
to use fabric that is high contrast to the artwork.
Start with a 3½" strip and fold it lengthwise so that
the wrong sides are touching, because you are going
to need the right side out.
Stitch it together with a quarter-inch seam, then go
to the iron and press it open and flat,
centering it on the back, because this is the side
that is going to frame the artwork. You need to
make strips long enough to go all the way around
each individual piece of art.
Now all my framing material is done. I just need to
frame the artwork.
Place the seam side over top of the seams, even if
they are overlapping, and then just tuck it inside.
You're going to go along and you're going to frame
every single one of these,
overlapping and then laying them out.
When you place your strips down, some of the
corners are on the top so they are going to need
to be mitered. It's very easy to miter. Mark your
corner, take it to the iron. Let me show you.
To do a mitered corner, mark where you want
your corner to be. Take your piece to the iron. I like
to just pin it onto the ironing board.
Pin that corner where you want that point to be
to the ironing board. When you pull up the fabric
you can see that it already wants to do that 45° angle.
Keeping your fabric straight you can pin it in again.
Then with your hand you're going to mark your 45°
then press it with an iron.
Once it's pressed you can take the pins out and you
have it all ready there to put on top of your quilt.
Place down all of your frames. You don't have to
frame the outside because that is going to be done
last. Make sure there are no raw edges showing
so everything is tucked in. Now we have to attach all
of these pieces together. The easiest way is to baste
it with a basting glue. This is a temporary basting
glue so it will come out in the wash, but it will hold
the layers together until I can get to sew it. If you
don't want to use a basting glue
you will need to pin your borders down on both sides
all the way around.
To glue it you're just going to run a little bit of glue
on each side of where the raw seams are going
to be. You don't need to worry about the one over
here because that's going to be trimmed off when
all of this is dry.
Just do a couple of dollops of glue
on both sides
and lay your frame back down.
Make sure you let it get good and dry because
you're going to want to pick up this entire thing
in one piece.
Once the glue has all dried, then you need to take this
to the machine and sew each of these borders down.
Put some pins in the heavier places and a few places
all over, just to hold it in, then go to the machine
and stitch down on the sides of each of these
frames, not going into the fabric, just stitching as
close as you can to the edgesof the frame.
So the frames are all stitched down and
it's now one big piece of fabric. If you flip it over
you will be able to cut off the extra fabric that hung
over when you overlapped things. You can cut off
that fabric— be careful not to cut the front, though.
Once all the pieces have been cut, take it to the iron
and give it a good press so it's nice and flat
because now you're going to square it up.
Once you finish squaring it up, we need to put a
border on it. I'm going to start with 4", but you
can choose whatever size border you want.
You need to take that 4" border and sew it onto
all four sides.
The 4" border is on and the seams have been
pressed out towards the border. That will save
bulk being in these areas. If you want, you can
leave it this way, but I want to maintain the
consistency of these frames so
I've made enough frame to go all the way around.
And you will put the border all the way around,
mitering each corner just as you did inside the quilt.
Let me show you how to join the two seams together.
So I've gone all the way around and now I need to
join these two.
Take one edge and tuck it in ¼", even a little bit
more than ¼", and just press it with your fingers.
Then you will make this piece just a little bit longer
and you're going to tuck it in. If you have a pair
of tweezers they're kind of handy.
When it's all tucked in you will be able to
sew it right down as you go all the way around.
The frame has been put on and stitched all the
way along the edges and it's done. It just needs to
be sandwiched and quilted. Now when you quilt this,
quilt each block Individually and do not quilt the
frames. The frames will pop up and this will look like
its own individual artwork on a wall.
My art collage is done. Quick, fast, easy, and
what's really nice about it, I get to use those big
pieces of fabric that I just didn't want to cut into.
And, it was very little sewing so this can be done in a
day. It just needs to be now sandwiched and quilted.
I'll put a link in the description from the fabric
line-up from Timeless Treasures and as always
Thank you for joining me today on SewVeryEasy.
Feel free to subscribe and, as always, come on back
and let's see what we're sewing next time
in the sewing room. Bye for now!
