Love is all Around – Mini Quilt {Tutorial}

Love, love, love… love, love, love… all you need is love…

Now that I have this iconic Beatles tune playing in your mind, I am sharing some love with my new Valentine’s Project.

Love is all Around – Mini Quilt

It’s a mini quilt, which hangs nicely on the wall, or which can be used as a placemat for afternoon tea, or just as a simple table topper.

To make this mini quilt, I started out by googling. I was looking for an image of the word “LOVE” in the shape of a heart. I ended up going with a clipart image I found.

You can use your own image, but if you’d like to use the same one I did, I have uploaded my adjusted version as a PDF here.

I printed it up as large as I could, on A4 sized paper. I then turned the page over and traced around the edge of the word in preparation for applique.

*Note: Always reverse letters when you intend to applique them. If you can see through the paper, that’s great, otherwise a light-box or window work well too. When I started out, I would forget to use the mirror image of the letters I wanted and wasted a lot of time and effort redrawing.

Applique

Trace the applique word onto the paper side of the vliesofix (double sided fusible paper).

Cut out the shapes roughly around the lines. Fuse the shapes to the back of the chosen fabric and cut them out on the lines.

Peel the backing paper off and lay them onto the white (background) fabric.

When the word “Love” is centred and spaced out to form the heart shape, fuse it in place with a hot dry iron.

Attach your applique foot to your sewing machine and applique the tree with coordinating thread. Charcoal or black thread would work well also. I used a small straight stitch. Blanket stitching by hand would work too.

Quilting

I made a quilt sandwich with the “Love” top, a layer of batting and backing and then stipple (quilted) around the word.

The shape of the mini quilt is up to you. I was going to leave it square, but in the spur of the moment, I got a large plate, traced around it and cut it into a circle shaped quilt.

Binding

I used this method of Single Fold Binding. Cut the fabric on the diagonal to make the binding. It needs the ‘stretch’ factor to be able to manipulate it around the circle.

And there you have it. A quick little tutorial on how to make the “Love is all Around” mini quilt.