I am now a quilting contributor on the Sizzix blog!!! How awesome is that? This here is my first official post with them and I’m super excited to start sharing all of my projects on their blog and here on my own.

Ok, enough about all that, let’s talk about these trivets…

I made the above two trivets as part of the Spring Fling Blog Hop. We were asked to pick out a flower die and make something awesome with it. I chose the Sizzix Bigz Die Flower, Daisy #5 for the simplicity of the design and the options it gave me. I could go super crazy with patterns or very basic with solids.

I seriously struggled with which one to try out first, so I just did both.

The design itself measures 4.75″ square, (which means it’s very charm pack friendly). I knew I wanted to go with this particular layout right away, so to start I cut out a 10″ square from each of my fabrics to use as the background, and set them aside.

I then cut out two 10″ squares of Wonder Under Lite and adhered one to the wrong side of the patterned fabric and one to the solid using a dry iron (don’t turn the steam function on, otherwise you will get ripples). After they cooled down I cut around the interfacing and then cut the 10″ squares into four 5″ squares. This made them the perfect size to lay right on top of the die, with a little wiggle room. Fun Fact: I always wait to cut my fabric after adhering the Wonder Under so I don’t have to worry about centering, shrinkage or accidentally adhering it to my ironing board. It’s less work and stress in the long run.

To get a clean cut, I layered two squares at a time and ran them through my Fabi. The design can be flipped easily, so I didn’t worry about fabric direction or which side of the fabric was facing up. If you have fabric with words, or directional prints, keep track of which piece is going which way.

Once all of the pieces were cut, I took the 10″ square backgrounds and the flower pieces over to my ironing board. I placed each flowers corner exactly on the corners of the background pieces and ironed them in place. I made sure the leaves were the same distance from the side and everything was straight all around. Things can shift a little when there are thinner pieces like those stems.

I decided against stitching around the appliques before quilting the entire thing, because I thought it would be neat to use the outline of the flowers as the quilting itself!

I knew these would actually be used as trivets (unlike most of my projects that hang around looking pretty) so I wanted to make them the right way. I used Insul-Bright Insulated Lining to help protect whatever surface would be under these trivets from heat damage. Then I went the extra mile and added a second layer of cotton batting on top. I sandwiched both of those in between my prepped background piece and my backing fabric and basted them all together.

Like I said above, I wanted the flower design to be my actual quilting design. So I straight stitched around all of the flowers using coordinating thread. These are pretty thick because of the extra batting, so if you attempt this project, make sure to use a walking foot!

I absolutely love this process, because it leaves the neatest design on the back! Plus its a total time saver because you are combining the applique and the quilting in to one step.

Once I finished quilting both trivets, I attached the binding and hand stitched it to the back. Again, because of how thick these are, I seriously suggest hand sewing the binding on. I feel like you have more control this way.

Ta-Da! They are finished!

I didn’t realize when picking out my fabrics just how well they match my Pyrex collection. I really wish I had taken some shots of them together. Maybe another time?

Fabrics Used:

• Grid Fabric and Binding – both are from the Doe collection by Carolyn Friedlander for Robert Kaufman
• Solid Fabric – Kona Cotton in Curry by Robert Kaufman
• Background Fabric – leftover bits I had of Widescreen 108″ in Grey by Carolyn Friedlander for Robert Kaufman

I hope you enjoyed my first project with Sizzix! You should also check out all of the other amazing projects made as part of this blog hop:

Monday, April 6th – Jamie Fingal
Tuesday, April 7th – Nicole Daksiewicz
Wednesday, April 8th – Leslie Tucker Jenison
Thursday, April 9th – Cindy Cooksey
Friday, April 10th – Victoria Findlay Wolfe
Saturday, April 11th – Sue Bleiweiss
Monday, April 13th – Karin Jordan

This last one was a Studio Ghibli themed craft swap. So it wasn’t just quilts, it was any type of craft. Well, almost any. The partner you are assigned does have a preference. I’m lucky mine likes mini quilts. If you are unfamiliar with anything Ghibli, then I recommend reading up on it a bit. Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation film studio that has some of the best animated films out there (in my personal opinion, and apparently many others too). They created such films as Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, etc etc. I 100% recommend you go and watch every single film they’ve made, if you havent already.

Anyway, for this swap I focused mainly on the film My Neighbor Totoro. My partner listed it as one they loved, and it fit best with their favorite fabrics and colors. Even though this should have been an easy make for me, I struggled. I couldn’t pin down just one idea. I had TOO MANY IDEAS! I put off working on the quilt until I made up my mind. In the meantime I made a little soot sprite brooch that you can read about a few posts back. So I wasn’t slacking completely.

I went out of town twice late Feb and early March, and then came home to the entire family being sick. So there was no time for any making for three whole weeks. Once everything got back to normal I went into panic mode and quickly picked out one of the designs I had come up with. It was a simple applique design of leaves around a hole that Totoro could peek out of.

To accomplish this look, I drew all the leaves by hand in a 5″ square. I then scanned in the doodle and enlarged it to 18″ square in illustrator. I also did a quick outline of Totoro and divided up all the pieces I’d need. I did this early in the morning before CT woke up, so instead of using my Silhouette CAMEO like usual, I decided to iron on the double sided fusible interfacing, print out templates, trace everything and cut out all the fabric by hand quietly. I miss doing that sometimes (not TOO often though).

The first part I pieced together was Totoro since that’s basically the bottom layer. I used a Corelle plate and traced a circle on the black and white fabric as my circle guide. I then did a reverse applique to get that perfect circle cut out (detailed instructions will have to wait until a later date) I made another circle 1/2″ bigger and attached my totoro applique to that. I then glue basted the two pieces together just so I could get a feel for the whole thing.

I pretty much just eyeballed the placement of the leaves, using my original sketch as a guide. I ironed them on in quadrants. Once they were all secured I attempted to hand embroider around all the edges. Lets just say it was the worst idea Ive had in a long time!! After a bunch of cussing and pulling out thread, I decided to do a machine blanket stitch around each piece using a dark mustard thread. Even though it was faster than by hand, it still took me a few hours to finish (broken up in two days of course).

Once all of the applique work was finished, I quilted it up using invisible thread on the front and the same mustard thread on the back. I did 45 degree angled stitches on each corner, so it overlapped on the middle sides. I then did a simple straight line stitch in the circle and then around the applique to permanently secure it. Can I just say how much I’m loving invisible thread for these projects? In certain light you can hardly see any stitches at all!! It’s awesome.

To finish the piece off I bound it in some black chambray and hand painted the eyes, whiskers and mouth (using fabric safe paint of course).

Since it was a swap, and all, I also added a few goodies in the package! A beautiful card I picked up at Disney World that would make a great framed print, the Soot Sprite brooch I made, some japanese sweets and a pile of Lizzy House fabric scraps (some from the new and yet to be released line).

I really loved working on this piece, and it really made me realize I LOVE making themed quilts. LOVE IT! If I sign up for anymore swaps (in addition to the other two im working on), they are going to be themed, period.

Whew, I think thats it! Everything was sent out two days ago, and it doesn’t look like my partner has received it yet. I’ll let you know what he/she thinks once they receive it. I also haven’t received my package yet, so expect another post talking all about that!!!!

So if you’re looking for a quick gift or decoration, then go check out the post,! (Theres way more photos too!)

Also, if you are already a Silhouette user, then make sure to check out the Silhouette Design Team Blog Hop Giveaways! Theres just one more day left to enter.