The Whimsical Workshop Studio: 2016

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Modern Melody Basic Quilt for Henry Glass Fabrics

Modern Melody Basics Quilt

58” x 76”

Here at The Whimsical Workshop Studios, we design 100’s of patterns a year for a large number of clients. Every once in a while one design will stand out as a favorite for me. This is the case with the Modern Melody Basics quilt we designed as a FREE pattern download for Henry Glass Fabrics. When I was sent the fabric collection to work with I thought about doing a Drunkard’s Path design and immediately planned on using my GO! Drunkard's Path-7" Finished Die (55034) if we ever needed to make the quilt.

As it turned out this was one of the quilt designs that was selected to be made into a quilt for Quilt Market (wholesale quilt show). I followed our directions for the quilt to make the strip sets and then broke out my GO! Electric Cutter and Drunkards Path Die to cut the curved and background pieces.

Once everything was cut. I sat down to pin each arch to a background piece. I recommend a comfy chair and a good movie while doing this step! The die cut shapes have a lovely notch on each piece of the block to make aligning the pieces a breeze. You can pin as much or as little as you need. Once everything was pinned, I sat down at the machine and zipped these through.

Once I had everything sewn, I pressed the blocks. I did not need to clip the curves, they just press down flat. I choose to square up each block to measure 6 ½” square by only trimming the white sides. I have to say this is the best way to make Drunkard Path blocks and with my die cutting system it made this quilt a breeze to make.

Here are a few photos of the quilt along with close ups of the amazing quilting done by Monica Croom.

Here is an image of the back of the quilt to really see the details.

Make sure to visit my blog each month where I will share with you some tips and tricks on cutting and assembling of the project of the month along with posting the free pattern on our website T he Whimsical Workshop You can also see our pattern and post at www.accuquilt.com

Until next time…..

Heidi

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Thursday, October 27, 2016

Dragonflies and Daisies FREE Pattern

Dragonflies & Daisies

32” x 32”

Fall is upon us and for people in Arizona that means the end to the100 degree days. Yah! So Fall in AZ can feel a lot more like spring does everywhere else. So this month to celebrate the cooler weather I decided to design a whimsical dragonfly table topper. I used a collection called Dragonfly Dance from Benartex Fabrics. This fabric has beautiful gold details to add elegance to the stunning artwork. I used my GO! Qube Specialty Set-Serendipity by Edyta Sitar to make the applique design and the pieced border.

The pattern for this month’s project is free from The Whimsical Workshop. You can download the free pattern at www.TheWhimsicalWorkshop.com along with our past free patterns. We have also included traditional cutting instructions for this project in the pattern too.

Here are all the dies I used for this project. I list each piece on the pattern for die-cutting and also include templates for traditional cutting. I also wanted to include an image of the die with the fabrics on top of the shapes that we are using for this project. For the die-cut shapes, I back my fabric with fusible web and cut pieces larger that the shape. Then I die-cut the shapes I need for my project.

When I design a pattern for fusible applique, I always try to include a placement drawing. You can use the placement drawing and an applique pressing sheet to assemble the pieces of the applique before positioning them on the background. An Applique pressing sheet is a Teflon coated sheet that keeps the fusible web from sticking to it. This means you can arrange the shapes on the sheet and iron them together. Any where the fusible web touches fabric, they will stick together and any where it touches the applique pressing sheet you can pull it off and the webbing will stay on the fabric.

A quick tip to remove the backing from the fusible web backed shapes, use a straight pin to scratch the paper backing on the webbing. This will create a crack and peel on the back of the shape and it is easier to remove the paper.

Above I am showing you how you can see the placement draw through the applique pressing sheet. I assemble one daisy at a time on the sheet and then I move the placement drawing under the applique pressing sheet to assemble the next flower. I continue until I run out of room. Then I peel off each completed shape.

To position each daisy on a corner square, I fold the square in half in both directions and press to create a center point. I use these lines to center and press the daisy in place.

For the center bouquet, I start with the stems and leaves and press them in place on the applique pressing sheet to hold the in place and then add the daisies to the top. Once the bouquet is complete it is ready to add to the center block with the dragonflies as shown below.

Once you have all the shapes pressed to the background squares, you will need to finish the edges with a decorative stitch along the raw edges for this project I use an olive green thread on everything to make them pop.

Here is the quilt finished and ready to quilt. I hope you enjoy this month’s project. I look forward to using my topper to decorate our table after Halloween. Happy Fall!

Until next time…..

Heidi

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Gnarly and The Ghost Free Pattern

Gnarly and the Ghosts

39” x 39”

Halloween is around the corner and it is time to break out the Spooky Décor. We are also so excited to share my Husband, Matthew’s newest fabric collection, Booooville from Benartex. The collection features a panel with Gnarly the tree getting ready to go trick or treating with his ghost friends. So this month I used my GO! Qube Mix & Match 6” Block Set and my new GO! Qube 6” Companion set to create a sweet and spooky wall hanging using part of the panel for the center and the corners. I used all the new dies from the Companion set to create whimsical borders to go around the tree. This left eight extra ghost panels so I used an assortment of dies to and fabrics to create a matching set of four place mats.

Here are all the dies I used for this project. The New GO! Qube 6” Companion set includes a Drunkard Path block, Signature Block and Chisel Block dies. I want to feature each of these new shapes in the wall hanging so I used them to create the borders for the quilt.

For Border One, I used the Drunkard Path Blocks. To create a “dot” border with the lime webbing fabric and black webbing fabric.

Next up, I used the Signature Block along with the half square triangle die from the GO! Qube Mix and Match 6” set to make the second Zig Zag border. Make sure to follow the pattern to cut the directional spider silk stripe fabric for this border. I again used the black webbing to blend into the first border.

For the final border I used the Chisel Die along with the half-square triangle die from the GO! Qube Mix and Match 6” set. I switched to Gray Webbing fabric for these unit so they blended into the whimsical Spooky Trees print that became the outer border. The Chisel units are made from Orange Webbing and White Words print. Make sure to refer to our pattern for cutting these units.

I found the white words print which is directional in both cut and print the most challenging to cut so I want to share with you an image of what it looks like when cutting. You will need to die cut each chisel from this fabric individually with the print of the fabric facing down and the words going across the width of the strip as shown here.

For the Placemats, I kept them simple to make using squares and half-square triangles. Now I am ready for Halloween with my new Halloween wall hanging and matching place mats. I hope you enjoy this project as much as I did. As always I would love to see what you make with our patterns. Happy Quilting.

Until next time…..

Heidi

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Searching for Cephalopods-Free Pattern

Searching for Cephalopods

42” x 42”

GO! Big Electric Fabric Cutter (55500)

GO! Qube 6” Block Set (55775)

I don’t know why but I love Octopus! Perhaps its because they have eight arms and some days I wish I did too so I could get more done. Maybe it is because they are smart animals that excel at creative problem solving, a daily requirement for my job. Whatever the reason is, when I saw “Come Dive With Me” from Windham Fabrics, I fell in love. So this month I used my GO! Qube Mix & Match 6” Block Set to create a sweet wall hanging using these darling fabrics. I placed the diver prints in the borders and the cephalopod prints in the center so it looks like the divers are searching for the Octopus. This ideas became the inspiration for the name, “Searching for Cephalopods”.

When designing the project, I laid out the fat quarters by pattern scale and directional prints. As you can see this group has a lot of directional prints and the scale on these is pretty small. The scale of the prints made it a perfect group to use with the GO! Qube Mix & Match 6” Block Set since those dies are pretty small. So I designed the quilt making sure to use the larger prints as block centers and the smaller prints in triangles and squares going around them. This helped showcase the fabrics and balance the design.

First step was to precut all my fabric into smaller pieces and lay them out on each die before cutting. I find this step keeps me organized and makes it easier to cut the right shapes from the right fabrics.

Since there are so many directional prints in this quilt that I was cutting into triangles, I wanted to share a few tips on working with directional fabrics with half-square and Quarter Square triangles. First up, Half-Square Triangles (HST), to cut the HST and have them all going in the same direction around the block, you need to cut half of the squares from the upper left to lower right corners and the other half cut from the upper right to lower left corners to create a mirror image of the print in half of the triangles. At least hat is how you would cut them traditionally.

Well when using the die cutter, you need to make sure the direction on the fabric is going in the same direction on all the squares, then flip half of them upside down, so half the squares are right side up and half are wrong side up, still the direction of the print going in the same direction. Then once you cut them you will have two sets of triangles that are mirror image of each other and will work perfectly in your block.

For Quarter Square triangles, they are even easier, you need to make sure all the squares are going in the same direction, then cut them with the fabric facing up on all the squares. For each square you will get four triangles, one in each direction. I like to separate them out by direction and lay them out in block as shown in the quilt.

Now I am ready to visit the my 8 legged friends in the deep blue sea with my new wall hanging. As always I would love to see what you come up with using our pattern. We would love to add you to our Bragging Rights Page on our website!

Until next time…..

Heidi