Jungle Friends Soft Book

Pattern/Technique: Jungle Friends fabric panel by Stacy Iest Hsu for Moda Fabrics (purchased from Stitch Supply Co.)

Modifications: none

New skills: n/a

Lessons/Notes: The grain on the fabric panel was quite off in places, making some of the pages warped. For the large pages I compensated for this by cutting out the page, folding it in half so that the short edges were aligned, then ironing toward the folded edge (essentially a version of the Harriet Hargrave method for straightening fabric grain in Quilters Academy vol. 1).

Note: I’m now realizing that maybe it would have made more sense to try straightening the grain for the whole panel before cutting out any pieces, though I didn’t notice it was so far off until after cutting - definitely a thing to pay attention to if I make another one of these.

This project called for a lot of interfacing and fusible fleece so I got to use up a bunch of that weird papery Pellon Featherweight I bought a while ago. I may have misread the instructions for the cover page, and interfaced the interior side with single-sided interfacing, but I don’t think the extra stability hurt anything.

Sewing both sides of the pages together was a little tricky with the non-stabilized fabric side up (quite a bit of shifting/stretching), but much easier with the fusible fleece side up.

Used my trick of marking the start/stop point of my seam with red pins.

Sewing around tight corners is a skill I’m trying to improve and I saw better results when sewing at a slow but steady pace (vs. stopping frequently) and really bossing the fabric around curves. Just have to continue to practice.

What I’d do differently: Check panel grain distortion before cutting out pieces. Overall this was a really quick and satisfying little project - I’d love to make another one in the future.

Care: Machine wash, dry flat

Lily Pad Mats

Pattern/Technique: Twig & Tale Lily Pad Blanket (from Tropical Leaf Blankets collection), large size

Modifications: None

Materials: 2 yds quilting cotton, 1 yd high loft quilt batting (bought a twin-sized high loft roll acrylic batting to make 2 lily pad blankets)

New skills: n/a

Lessons/Notes: After sewing the batting to the fabric layers (if I recall correctly, I sewed with the batting layer on top to prevent fibers from getting pushed into my machine), I used scissors to grade the batting so that it wouldn’t form a thick layer after turning the pad right side out. I also clipped notches around the tight curves to make a clean edge.

I didn’t use the template for the vein quilting, given the simplicity of the veins and the work required to make a template. Instead I used a chaco liner to sketch in veins and sewed over them.

While sewing the vein lines, I started at the intersection point with 5 0mm length stitches, then switched to a 2mm stitch and sewed toward the outside edge, backstitching for 1/2 inch then cutting the thread.

Bringing the bottom thread up to the top layer was extra important on this project, so that I didn’t end up with a thread nest at the intersection point of the veins.

What I'd do differently: I’m hopeful that the quilting lines are close enough to prevent the batting from bunching. If that proves to be an issue I’ll quilt closer lines in the future

Care: Machine wash, lay flat to dry