A few weeks back Sylvia of Flying Parrot Quilts contacted me with her idea to do a quilt along for a quilt she made using a mash up of a bunch of Halloween themed patterns. She calls it the Epic Halloween Quilt. You can see a photo of it here.

Each week she talks about a different pattern, either free or paid, that fits in the quilt. Like a puzzle piece.

This week is my Ring of Coffins pattern with Heidi Kenney’s Occupied Coffin add on (that’s included)

For anyone out there that hasn’t worked with English Paper Piecing / EPP, where it needs to be basted straight, I’m here to help! Just Keep Reading…

For the Epic Halloween Quilt Along, make sure to print the pattern at 85% to help it fit on the block!

How to Make a Custom Fussy Cutting Template:

For my block, I will be making eight solid coffins and eight occupied coffins. However you could do whatever configuration you want. Just make sure to print out enough templates pieces!

I like to print my EPP Templates on 68lb cardstock, and my Occupied Coffins Foundation Paper Piecing template on everyday copy paper. For this tutorial, I am also using a small piece of Heavy Duty Template Plastic.

The first step is to trace to basic coffin template on to the plastic, using a sharpie marker. I also labeled it, so I know it is the 85% smaller coffin.

Next I go and center the Occupied Coffins window in the Basic Coffin shape and trace that too.

I then cut out the entire thing using my “anything” scissors. This plastic is thick, so don’t use your nice fabric scissors. You don’t have to cut out the window, I just like the extra visibility.

Now that the fussy cutting template is ready to go, here are two ways to use it…

Using the Fussy Cutting Template to Make a Solid Coffin Block:

You don’t always need to center pieces that are just blender fabrics, but if you’re like me, and you want straight blocks, this is one of many ways it cane be done.

If your fabric is printed on a light base fabric, you can use a disappearing ink pen to trace the template on to the back of the fabric itself. Make sure to leave room around template, because you’ll need that in the next step.

Cut about 1/4″ to 1/2″ all the way around the traced lines. The seam allowance all depends on your personal basting preferences.

Next take one of your cut out solid cardstock coffin templates, and your choice of clips (I like the jumbo Wonder Clips by Clover) and line it up with the traced line and secure it temporarily.

Now here is where you may go “but that’s not how I baste EPP”, and I get that a lot. “There are many ways to skin a cat”, and there are many ways to baste English Paper Piecing templates. This just happens to be my personal choice. If it isn’t yours, skip this and the next step.

I tie a knot at the end of my thread and I do two large basting stitches to keep the coffin secure and in place. I don’t take the clips off yet.

Using the same thread, I then continue to baste around the edges by going through the paper. Again, it’s a personal preference. You could glue baster yours, or baste only the fabric around the coffin. All up to you!

This is how my finished basic coffin looks. See how the lines are all straight on the bottom? It’s all; because I went that next step and lined it all up! Sometimes it’s just worth it.

Next up…

Using the Fussy Cutting Template to Make a Occupied Coffin Block:

So using the template for the Occupied Coffin is a bit different. At first I use the inside window to pick out the best cuts for the window of the coffin. I then use the outside edge of the template as my cutting guide. I added a 1/2″ underneath the window ledge too.

I then just add that to the center block of the pattern and piece it normally. It’s just nice getting that perfectly centered block without guessing.

I’m not going to get in to how to do Foundation Paper piecing, because I don’t want to make this post too long, BUT if you have questions about this particular pattern, please just email me.

Above is after I centered the fussy cut block and then pieced all the other pieces all around it. I haven’t trimmed it yet, and I want you to read the next step before you do so too.

If you are making these blocks as part of the Quilt Along, and you shrunk the pattern 85%, then you’ll need to account for it. I would trim the edges of the Occupied Coffin 1/8″ or 1/4″ away from the original edge. I chose 1/8″, but it all depends on how much fabric you like to work with when basting.

Once your Occupied Coffin is all trimmed and nice looking, Take your template and match up the window you just stitched up. Keep it in place and trace around the edge. I used a dark chambray as my coffin fabric, and ended up using a yellow dressmakers chalk. If you are sewing with lighter fabric, you can use the disappearing ink again. Whatever works for you!

You can see my traced lines here.

Now, just like with the basic coffin, using your choice or clips go ahead and center the card stock piece and baste it on using your preferred method.

I used a bulkier fabric, so I had to do a bunch of tiny stitches to keep it all in place. Especially around the corners. As you can see though, the little window is perfectly centered and it wasn’t that hard at all!

Just continue whichever steps you need to to complete all 16 coffins needed for the ring.

If you would like to hear about how I piece together all the coffins and attach them to the backing fabric, then please stop back by next week to see more.

In the meantime make sure to check out the #epichalloweenqal hashtag on InstaGram to see everyone else’s progress on their quilts. It all looks so amazing. If you make yourself a ring of coffins, please use the #ringofcoffins and #artschooldropoutpatterns hashtag so I can go look at them too!!

About two months ago I was contacted by the lovely people over at Andover Fabrics with an idea they had for a rainbow wall of mini quilts at QuiltCon this year. They would send me the fabric in a specific colorway and I would send them a mini quilt to hang in their booth during the event. I have been very sick, and haven’t had the energy to finish anything large, but I figured I could hand sew most of the mini so I said “yes!”

They sent me the gorgeous bundle of blue and white fabric shown above, which arrived right at the beginning of the blizzard we had. The majority of the fat quarters were either by Lizzy House or Alison Glass. The rest was from various other lines with Andover (I really should look in to them because they were all beautiful).

I decided to hand sew this mini using the technique called English Paper Piecing. I’ve talked about it loads on here before, but usually I just sew hexagons. I’ve been branching out in to other shapes lately and I’m just dying to show you all where it’s taken me. This piece of course being the first one. It took me about a week and a half to baste and piece, and then one day to matchstick quilt.

As you can see if this photo, I tried something new and did matchstick quilting (super close quilting) in various directions to kind of break up the design a bit. I also quilted to middle in a grid pattern to separate it from the rest of the design.

The finished piece ended up being 18″ across, and I am over the moon happy with how this piece turned out! I really can’t wait to mess with this idea a bit more. Would anyone be interested in a pattern? I number all the pieces and have a legend already to go, since that’s the way I work.

Added Bonus: Here’s a shot of my mini surrounded by all of the other pieces made for their booth!! (photo by @giucy_giuce on IG . One of the faces behind this project btw) How gorgeous are they?!? I feel so honored to be included in this group full of peers and friends. I really wish i could of been there to see it all in person, byt that just wasn’t in the cards this year. Next year however I WILL be there,no matter what!

This week on the Sewing Party blog I show my step by step process for using my sewing machine to bind a quilt! It’s a perfect technique for when you just don’t want to spend hours hand sewing the binding on or you are crunched for time!

I have received very good feedback about the post so far, so please go check it out too!

I have been a bit behind due to travel and catching a cold, so I missed posting about my October blog post on the Sewing Party blog.

I showed how you can use a domestic embroidery machine to make your very own iron on patches. Even if you don’t have a machine, it’s still neat to learn about, I promise!

CT’s first day of Kindergarten was this past week. It was a HUGE milestone for both of us, so of course I had to take loads of photos.

I also figured I should make a little sign so we never forget it was the first day of school.

Then after much thought I decided on a second piece that can be detached that says which year of school shes starting.

All of this snowballed into the fabric banner above! It’s 8″ square with marine grade vinyl letters cut out using my Sizzix Fabi and the Block Talk Alphabet Die Set. The background is Andover Fabrics chambray in black. I made it pretty much the exact same way as my Appliqued Vinyl Letter Pillow.

I also added snaps to the bottom of the banner so I could make an attachment for each year she is in school. I plan on making all the grades later this week when things have calmed down around here and putting this in a safe place.

The idea of her using this every year makes me all teary eyed! Can you imagine her in 12th grade holding this little banner?!?!?

As you may be able to tell, I’m a complete mess over her going to school. Yes I gained 8 uninterrupted hours each weekday, but I still miss her soooooooooo much. Does it get easier?!?

Today I share with you another tutorial as part of my Sizzix Design Team series using their 1.5″ Bigz Alphabet Die Set. This project also is the first in my new “Jessee’s Playlist” series, where I create a project using either lyrics or images pertaining to songs in my playlist. I thought it would be neat to combine my two greatest loves, creating and music!

This project could easily be modified to use the type of products you prefer, I just have my preferences. I’ll point out where things can be changed around throughout the tutorial.

The first thing I did was pick out my quote. I spent hours just listening to music until I found one that fit. It was really hard work! Haha.

I chose an excerpt from a Brand New song titled Seventy Times 7. This song has been in almost every playlist I have put together for the past 14 years. 14 YEARS! It probably helps that I’ve seen the band more than a dozen times AND my name is in the song.

“Ignore the sun, the cover’s over my head.
I wrote a message on my pillow that says, “Jesse, stay asleep in bed.”"

Isn’t that a perfect quote for a pillow? A pillow for my workroom?!? Of course it is.

Once I had my quote, I needed to figure out how many of each letter I needed to cut out. I started with A and tallied all the A’s up, and then on to B and then C and so on and so on.

I chose to make my letters out of Marine Grade Vinyl. The kind they use to upholster car’s and boat’s. I just happen to have a lot of hand, and I like how clean the edges are since the back is a woven polyester. Plus it just has the right “look” for the quote in my opinion.

You could also use any weight fabric with an attached fusible interfacing instead.

I cut my vinyl in to 2.5″ long strips and then cut the strips up in to 2.5″ squares. This gave me wiggle room when it came to cutting out the letters.

I noticed the letters on the dies were backwards, so I made sure to place the vinyl right side facing down on top of each letter. I was able to stack three vinyl pieces at a time, but I would test out your vinyl first to see what the limit would be.

I used my Sizzix Fabi, along with two cutting pads and the 1.5″ Bigz Alphabet Die Set to cut these. The recommended way to crank these through is cutting pad, then die facing up, your fabric/paper and then another cutting pad on top. Then just crank it through! FYI: It you feel a lot of resistance, then that means you have overloaded your die.

You can see above what they look like once they come out. For the skinnier letters like the “I’, I was able to reuse the leftover vinyl on the sides.

I also cut out a few extra I’s that I manually could cut up into punctuation marks. Once I had all the letters and punctuation I needed I set them all aside for later.

For the background I could have very easily just cut out a solid piece of fabric, but I like my projects to have texture. In the case of this piece, the texture also doubles as a guide.

The letters I cut out were 1.5″ tall, so I needed a line guide that was 2″ tall so everything wasn’t all squished together. To start this guide, I cut ten 2.5″ strips out of black chambray that measured 20″ long each. Using a 1/4″ seam I stitched them all together along the 20″ side.

All ten strips sewn together equaled a 20″ square with 8 lines that were 2″ apart. As you can see above, the lines are very subtle. I believe that has to do with the chambray itself, some other fabrics may not blend as well.

I wanted to make the guide just a little more useful, so I marked the center of each line with a dressmakers pencil. Then I set up the background piece near a small cutting mat I had.

My mat is 18″x24″, so it was perfect to use as a mock up for all the letters. I started from the 9″ line and went out on either side on each line to center them.

It took some time to get it right the way I liked it. I added the punctuation later (thought I’d suggest adding it during this step)

Now it’s time for the actually assembly! Using a little Elmers Washable School Glue on the back of each letter, start attaching the letters in place on the seam lines. I only suggest doing one line at a time.

Once the entire line is placed, take it over to your ironing board and iron the BACK of the fabric square. This sets the glue and helps keep everything in place. Do not iron the front, that will just be messy and wont secure anything.

After the fabric cools down, take the entire piece over to your sewing machine. Using a Teflon Foot or something similar start top stitching around each letter. This took me a few hours, but it was worth it in the end because the top stitching looks so great and adds a lot of texture!

Another option is to just sew straight lines through all of the letters making sure to secure the tops and bottoms. If you used quilting weight cotton you could just leave it all as is, and just quilt over it all before assembling the pillow.

I thought I had taken photos of the next steps, but I can’t find them! So you will need to use your imagination…

Once all my letters were top stitched and all the loose threads were cut, I quickly spray basted the top to some cotton batting and straight line quilted them together. I only stitched right above each line so I didn’t sew through any of the letters. I did end up sewing through a few commas though.

For the back of the pillow I cut a piece of fabric 22″x20″ and quickly basted and quilted it using wavy lines. I always do this because I feel like it makes my pillows softer and more comfortable in the end.

Then I cut the piece into two parts, one measuring 9″x20″ and the other measuring 13″x20″. I folded down one of the 20″ sides of each 1/2″ down, ironed it and then folded it down again and ironed again. I top stitched each of these folds in place. I them installed plastic snaps in 2″ increments down the folds on each side. This basically made a pocket pillow back with a snap closure. My favorite way to finish a pillow these days.

The pillow finished at 19.5″x19.5″, so when it was stuffed with a 20″ pillow form it looked nice and full!

I absolutely love the finished piece and I’m already starting to dream about this process using cotton with a much longer quote as the top of a quilt!!! The sizzix really does speed along these types of projects.

Supplies Used:

• Sizzix Fabi Die Cutting Machine
• Sizzix Bigz Alphabet Set 9 Dies – Block 1 1/2″ Capital Letters & Numbers
• 1/4 yard Marine Grade Vinyl in Off White
• 3/4 yard Andover Black Chambray
• Elmer’s Washable School Glue
• Off White thread
• Cotton Batting
• KAM Snaps
• 20″ Pillow Form

It’s mostly made out of scrap fabric, only uses one Sizzix die and it a attractive way to protect your table. You should go check it out!

Pin It]]> http://artschooldropout.net/blog/trivet-table-runner-combo-tutorial-for-sizzix/feed/ 0 http://artschooldropout.net/blog/a-collaboration-between-cloud-9-fabrics-silhouette-america-me/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-collaboration-between-cloud-9-fabrics-silhouette-america-me http://artschooldropout.net/blog/a-collaboration-between-cloud-9-fabrics-silhouette-america-me/#comments Wed, 17 Sep 2014 12:22:34 +0000 jesseesuem http://artschooldropout.net/blog/?p=3304 Continue reading →]]> Back in July, I took place in a collaboration between Cloud 9 Fabrics and Silhouette America. I was sent an awesome fat quarter bundle of Cloud 9′s new line Arcadia by Sarah Watson to make something using my Silhouette CAMEO. All they asked of me was to make it an applique project.

I had so much fun designing and making this project! I wrote up a full tutorial, with pictures, over on Silhouette America’s blog. Trust me when I say, this project was way easier to make than it looks!

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 Also, if you are new here and would like to keep up on all the new projects I will be posting then please add me on BlogLovin!

I’ve been a huge mess lately preparing for BlytheCon (2 WEEKS LEFT TO PREP) and working on my Silhouette America projects so I can focus on that BlytheCon stuff, so I haven’t been able to play with all this fabric uninterrupted.

I did attempt to make a pretty, kinda chevron looking pillow out of the new 1Canoe2 line. Halfway through though I realized I had cut a bunch of pieces wrong and now I am reassembling what I can into pot holders. Luckily the line has food related items in it, which actually makes it PERFECT for potholders. Why didn’t I think of potholders before? I’ll share the finished set soon!

I also attacked the Chillingsworth charm packs and made a couple huge piles of hexies. They have already been pieced together and are just in the queue waiting to be quilted. (I like to do all my quilting at once. I may be a weirdo like that) Just like the potholders, I hope to share  the finished piece soon.

I also have BIG plans for those fat quarter bundles shown in the background of the first photo. I’m just not ready to share yet.

So, on a slightly different note, this post is just a sweet reminder of the changes I’ve made in how I spend my days! I can now sit down and sew, draw, bake and more without all the stress involved with what I was previously doing. I feel like I’m actually making progress in my goals I talked about last month and I have learned so much in that time too. I’m happier and a bit less stressed (I’ll be even more stress free after BlytheCon).

So I’d like to say thank you to everyone who encouraged me and has been supportive along the way.

You are all awesome!!!

I was so excited to get a hold of these little things, and I seriously cut right into them the second I got home. Well, after I made custom paper hexagons specifically to fit these with little waste. I used my Silhouette Portrait to do that btw.

I documented the entire process on Instagram, so I’ll be sharing some of those photos too.

Making the hexies themselves took no time at all. There were 120 2.5″ squares total (3 mini charm packs worth) and I can do about 35-40 a night. The part that took me the longest was whipstitching them all together. There wasn’t too much rhyme or reason to where I placed everything, I did make sure to keep similar pieces as far apart as I could, but thats it.

I know some people stitch their hexies on the bottom and don’t go through the paper, but I found that doesnt work for me and my slightly uncoordinated hands. I work much cleaner and faster when i baste through the paper. You can see me taking out the basting stitches and papers above. I always use neon pink thread because it allows me to see every stitch so i don’t miss any before quilting.

The above photo was just taken for fun! This was right after taking all of the paper out and steam pressing the entire thing. Isn’t it pretty?

I seriously could not decide how I wanted this thing quilted. I’m really only good at straight lines and tracing around objects right now, so to make sure I secured all the hexies and still had a pretty design in the end I went with the above combination. I used the edge of the hexies and the edge of my basic walking foot to line up all of the lines. It went pretty fast this way and I absolutely love the texture it added.

I squared off the edges, quilted a simple back piece using Robert Kaufman’s Essex Yarn Dyed in Denim, added an invisible zipper and stitched the entire thing together…

Tada, I have a finished pillow! One that has already been taken by my four year old as her own. She even gave me a hug and said thank you for making it for her. Ok, I guess it’s hers now.

I’m waiting on an invisible zipper for my other hexie pillow I’ve been working on. This one actually IS for my daughters room. I’ll post photo’s of that project soon enough.

Who knows though, I might start working on a 5th and 6th hexie project too! I may be a little obsessed…