You Are Tweet {Mini Quilt}

Well helloooooo! I’m Wendy , the owner and designer behind Sugarlane Designs. I’m a wife and mother to one nearly-21 year old and two fur-children, one moodle named Ralph and one moggy named Charlie. We live in a tropical North Queensland sugar cane district (hence the name) in the northern part of Australia, where temperatures rarely go below 23 degrees Celsius and often hover in the low 30s. I’m a former teacher turned quilter/stitcher/designer and always blogger, who just loves to share so I was over the moon when I was asked to participate in Fort Worth Fabric Studio’s Mini Quilt Mania. Now, with my love of stitching, I just HAD to incorporate a stitchery into my mini.

I chose four fabrics from the AdornIt range of fabrics….. aren’t they just adorable? Tweet little birdies all over the place…..therefore…”You Are Tweet!” was born. Finished Mini Quilt size is 18 ½ x 16 ½ The requirements for this mini are:

• ½ yard Rhapsody Bob Birdie Perch Adornit
• ¼ yard Pink Burnish Adornit
• ¼ yard Rhapsody Bop Song Floral Adornit
• ¼ yard Rhapsody Bop Ecstatic Dots Adornit
• 9in x 11in rectangle white linen
• Weaveline to back linen
• DMC stranded embroidery threads as follows: 304, 321, 327, 472, 597, 603, 725, 745, 800, 817, 963, 3326, 3781, 3835,
• Size 9 crewel needle
• 25” x 3/4in wide white/off white ric rac
• 20in square wadding
• 0.1 brown pigma pen
• Lightbox is optional
• Embroidery hoop is optional
• General sewing supplies
• Stitchery Instructions

Follow stitchery instructions as given in the download. Once complete, trim back to approximately 1 inch around the outside of the heart outline (1). Cut a notch ½ inch into the centre top of the heart, so you can turn easily (2). Turn edge under ½ inch and sew a running stitch to hold . Take your ric rac and needleturn your heart to the ric rac, starting at the centre top of the heart (3). Once attached, remove running stitches.

Cut a 12 ½ x 9 ½ rectangle of the Pink Burnish fabric. Centre your heart onto it and pin in place. (4) Needleturn applique to the pink background. Trim this block back to 10 ½ x 8 ½ in .

Cut two 2 ½ in strips from each of the grey floral and dots fabric. Using a ¼ in seam, sew one strip of each, right sides together along the long side. Press seams to the dark fabric. Repeat with other two strips. Crosscut into eighteen 2 ½ in sets.

Sew two lots of 4 sets, alternating colours and nesting seams, to create both side borders and two lots of 5 sets for top and bottom borders, as shown in the picture. With right sides together, stitch bottom border strip to bottom edge of centre panel. Press towards the centre. Repeat for top border strip.

Fussy cut four 4 ½ in squares from the Birdie Perch fabric, so that you ‘capture’ the birds in their bird cages.

Take each of your fussy cut blocks and place them in the four corners so that they are visually pleasing to you. Stitch each fussy cut block to both top and bottom of the side borders using a ¼ in seam and pressing to the corner blocks. Pin these right sides together along the side borders, nesting the seams and stitch. Press.

Cut a 20 in square of the Birdie Perch fabric to use as your backing. Layer, pin and quilt your mini as preferred. I chose to cross-hatch the 4 patches and stitch ¼ in inside the seam lines of the corner blocks and central panel and stitch all the way around the heart, using my walking foot.

  Trim back to 18 ¼ x 16 ¼ in. I added a 4 “ x 17” hanging sleeve to the back using the grey floral, folding the short ends under 1/8 in twice and topstitching, before folding in half, raw edges together with right sides out and placing flush against the top edge of the mini quilt. Add the binding and then whipstitch the folded edge down to create a hanging ‘tube’.

The binding is made with the pink burnish Adornit fabric, using three 2 ½ in strips, mitred together as usual.  Hang and enjoy!

Hope you enjoyed my tutorial….if you have any questions, pop on over to my blog Sugarlane Designs or visit me on Pinterest or Instagram @wendybert to see what else I get up to. Don’t forget to visit all the other amazing mini quilt designers and see what they’ve prepared for you for FWFS Mini Quilt Mania. You can find their links HERE. Sugary hugs :o)