Patchwork Breeze: Four-in-Art Reveal of Literature Mini Quilt

5/01/2015

Four-in-Art Reveal of Literature Mini Quilt

I have been working on a number of things lately, most are not quilting projects. However, I do have my Four-in-Art project done and ready for this reveal today. The on-line group I belong to has an overall theme each year. This year it is Literature. Each of us chose how we wanted to represent the theme in a 12" square quilt. Every 3 months we reveal a new piece.

I am continuing with the theme of children's literature incorporating fonts in each piece. Dr. Seuss came to mind for this challenge. I remember reading his books to my own daughters and the students in my kindergarten classes. I chose the book One fish two fish red fish blue fish for my quilt piece. (Dr. Seuss did not use commas in this book title.) This series of quilts is going to be donated to the local library for the Children's Room.

I purchased my Scan N Cut machine in July, 2014, but had not used it many times. In January, 2015, a demo class was held at the store where I purchased it. I learned many things that the machine could cut....but most importantly, tips and tricks to confidently use it. So, armed with my fused fabric and a brayer (which helps get all the fabric adhered to the tacky mat), I easily cut the letters and numerals for my Four-in-Art Challenge quilt.

Here it is: Learning with Dr. Seuss.

I backed the fabric for the numbers and letters with fusible before I cut them. I remember watching Doreen Speckmann years ago make what she called Peaky and Spike blocks into fish. I wanted fish like hers and used the EZ Quilting templates from Wright Co. to cut the size fabric pieces I needed. Many manufacturers call these templates Tri-Recs.

I set the fish blocks into a skewed frame of fabric (something like paper piecing) for the background and trimmed it to 12-1/2" square. Then I played with the position of the numbers and letters finally fusing them when I had an arrangement I liked.

I sewed the letters with a blanket stitch to make sure they stayed attached to the background over the years.

It was time to decide on quilting. I printed a smaller photo of my quilt on 8-1/2" x 11" paper and slipped it into a plastic sheet protector. With an erasable marker I drew some designs to see what would work. (Thanks go to my fellow Four-in-Arter, Elizabeth, who passed this tip along in a post a while back.)

I did not like my first design--too much detail in my opinion.

The second design looked better. I wanted bubbles from the fish.

I wanted some movement of water so the design changed a bit as I quilted it.

I trimmed the quilt to size. The fish got button eyes and gills and mouths. I wanted to accentuate the bubbles and found some white plastic beads in my embellishment box. I think those added a good finishing touch.

I sew double folded bindings on my quilts from the back, press them to the front and topstitch with my walking foot since carpel tunnel makes hand sewing difficult. I had the binding leftover from another project and thought it would brighten the quilt even more for the Children's Library Room.