These quilts were created in 1 afternoon – 2.5 hours to be exact – using my Creative Girl Art Quilt Patterns. I filmed my fun and with the magic of iMovie you can watch the whole process in 11 minutes.

The video is a quick overview – for more details on creating your own art quilts, sign up for STITCHED 2015 where you can watch and re-watch the videos in my Magpie Girl Art Quilt class and so many other art quilt classes by a great group of instructors.

I’m giving away the ‘She is Beautiful’ and ‘She is a Star’ art quilts. Leave a comment here before 11:59pm on Sunday, April 12th telling me which quilt you’d prefer. I’ll randomly select 2 lucky winners who will receive one of the quilts and a Creative Girl Art Quilt Pattern.

That’s not all – this month, I turn 40 and I’m celebrating big! There’s a sale on all quilts in my Etsy shop.

AND

I’m giving away this completed Magpie Girl art quilt that says, ‘She dances to celebrate – she dances to remember’ and a selection of my patterns to one lucky STITCHED 2015 participant.

For a chance to win the Magpie Girl art quilt and patterns, register for STITCHED before April 17th. On that day, I’ll randomly select a winner from all registered STITCHED participants.

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Be sure to visit the blogs below in the next week for more tutorials and giveaways!

April 3rd: Celeste at http://goatfeathers-celeste.blogspot.com

April 6th: Carmi at http://carmicimicata.blogspot.ca

April 7th: Lidija at http://www.bludor.com/magazine

April 8th: Lynn at http://smudgedtextilesstudio.com/blog/

April 9th: Hanna at http://www.ihanna.nu

April 10th: Alma at http://almastoller.blogspot.com

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Go, register for STITCHED now. It a virtual retreat with classes, discussion and Facebook fun. I’m already so inspired and there’s new classes and Blocks of the Month to be released each month.

I thought you might enjoy a few in progress photos and instructions on how I do a ballerina with a dimension tutu.

Remove all of the the release paper from ballerina except on the arms and iron the girl to the background.
Create a tulle tutu. I hand gather 4 layers for tulle – the strips are about 5 times the width of the ballerina’s waist. The gathered tulle is hand stitched to a piece of ribbon slightly wider than her waist with the end tucked under to be the exact width of her waist. I then trim the tutu to the desired length.

I outline stitch around the twice on the skirt, legs, shoes, face, next and hair and once on the bodice. I don’t have any stitching on the arms which still have the paper on them at this point. This lets me do mod tot the stitching without having to move the tutu around a lot.

Place the tutu on the girl and outline stitch around the ribbon.

Remove the paper from the arms and follow the stitching on the bodice to get to the arms. Since I can’t fuse the arms in place without melting the tulle, I turn my feed dogs back on and slowly sew once around the arms once instead of using free motion stitching. I leave my darning foot on while I do this so I have a bit of control for turning. For the second pass on outline stitching I do normal free motion stitching.

Below is my favorite method for adding quilt hangers as I bind a quilt.

Step 1: Gather materials.
– Quilt trimmed to size
– Single fold bias tape 1/2”
– Ribbon, 4 pieces about 1.5” – 2”
– 2 spiral paperclips (round or square)
– Lighter or lit candle or fray stop liquid
– Sewing machine and sewing supplies

Step 2: Singe both edges of the ribbon to stop fraying. You could use fray stop liquid instead of a lighter if you prefer.

Step 3: Open the bias tape and fold down the end about 1/2”.

Step 4a: Stitch the bias tape to the edge of your quilt with a 1/4” seam. Sew over the folded edge of the bias tape.

Step 4b: Continue sewing around the edge of the quilt like you would with any other binding including mitering your corners.

Step 4c: When you return to where you started, cut the bias tape to overlap the folded edge.

Step 4d: Finish sewing the bias tape in place.

Step 5a: Fold the bias tape around to the back of the quilt. The folded edge of the bias tape will cover the cut edge sealing it in.

Step 5b: Continue folding the bias tape to the back securing edge of the quilt in the binding. Pin the binding in place as needed.

Step 6: Place two ribbons on each spiral paperclip (hanger) at 90 degree angles.

Step 7: Slide the hangers into the upper corners of the quilt with the ribbon secured under the bias tape.

The top backside of your quilt will look like this.

Step 8: Stitch the edge of the binding in place. Removing pins as you go.

Step 9: At the corners, back tack over the ribbons.

Step 10: Press the edges of the quilt.

Here’s a quilt that isn’t black on black to show the completed back with hangers in place.

I thought I would share the 5 steps to submit artwork for possible publication. These directions apply to any Stampington publication – they really make the process easy and not scary.

If you loved making it, your joy can be seen by others.

Type up a short description of the technique(s) you used and the what inspired your art. Be sure to save this write-up; if your art is selected for inclusion in the magazine, you may be asked to turn your write-up into an article.

Even though I add my usual quilt labels to my work, I always pin on another label with my full contact information. If your work is dimensional, you can place the art in a labeled bag.

Place your art in a plastic bag to protect it from the elements. Find a box for your art (even better if you decorate it with your art). Include a check for return postage and your write up.

Send the package. Address it to the publication you are submitting your art to.

If you need a jump start as to what to create or which magazine to submit to, see the calls & challenges.

To submit art or articles to other publications, look at the magazine or their website for details. Some like art first, others like email submissions.

Yesterday I shared a method of creating an girl art quilt where the quilting is done after the girl is attached to the quilt top (background fabric).

Today, I’ll show you my preferred method of quilt construction where the background is quilted before the girl is attached. The first few step are identical to those I shared earlier.

Step 1: Gather items for quilt: pattern, faces pre fused to fusible webbing, fusible webbing, background fabric, backing fabric, batting, ruffles, fabric for dress, embellishments.

Step 2: Color the face with colored pencils and cut out. If desired, you can draw different hair with a permanent marker before coloring.

Step 3: Trace dress pattern onto the back of fusible webbing, fuse dress fabric to the fusible webbing and cut out. If making a short sleeve dress or if you want to add legs, fuse webbing to fabric matching the face and cut out arms and legs. My arms for these girls were straight lines.

Step 4: Assemble girl together by removing all release paper from the pieces and fusing the girl together on a piece of parchment or teflon sheet.

Step 5: Quilt the quilt and bind if using pillow case binding technique.

Step 6: Fuse girl to the background.

Step 7: Outline stitch around the girl. If I were using a traditional binding technique with bias strips, I’d attach the binding at this time.

Step 8: Attach ruffles.

Step 9: Embellish the quilt with buttons, ribbon, metal trinkets, embroidery floss. Write a saying on a piece of fabric fused to fusible webbing, trim and iron to quilt. Stitch around the saying and attach a hanger to the back of the quilt.

I did a mini workshop last week on creative girl art quilts. I spent the week prior making detailed step outs on the construction of these art quilt. Today I am sharing one method of construction for making a creative girl art quilt.

Step 1: Gather items for quilt: pattern, faces pre fused to fusible webbing, fusible webbing, background fabric, backing fabric, batting, ruffles, fabric for dress, embellishments. My quilt is 6” x 9” so my background and backing fabrics are cut a bit larger than this.

Step 2: Color face with colored pencils and cut out. If desired, you can draw different hair with a permanent marker before coloring.

Step 3: Trace dress pattern onto the back of fusible webbing, fuse dress fabric to the fusible webbing and cut out. If making a short sleeve dress or want to add legs, fuse webbing to fabric matching the face and cut out arms and legs. My arms for these girls were straight lines.

Step 4: Assemble girl together by removing all release paper from the pieces and fusing the girl together on a piece of parchment or teflon sheet. You can assemble the girl directly on to the background fabric.

Step 5: Fuse girl to background and assemble your quilt sandwich.

Step 6: Attach ruffles using a straight stitch. The ruffles are cut slightly wider than the dress and each end is folded under as it is attached.

Step 7: Outline stitch around the girl, add quilting stitches and bind quilt. I used a pillowcase type binding on these quilts where I folded the edges together and stitched them in place. (You can see where I haven’t finished trimming my quilting lines.)

Step 8: Embellish quilt with buttons, ribbon, metal trinkets, embroidery floss. Write a saying for the girl on a piece of fabric fused to fusible webbing, trim and iron to quilt. Stitch around the saying and attach a hanger to the back of the quilt.

She feared decorating decisions (6” x 10”)

A comment from ♥Duff inspired me to write a tutorial on making a girly quilt. It was fun to pause during each step and snap a photo. Hope you enjoy seeing the process as much as I enjoy doing it.

Find a drawing or photo of a face and trace it. If I am using heads I already created such as these, I skip this step.

Scan the drawing, edit using Photoshop elements and print the onto muslin ironed to freezer paper. Remove the freezer paper and iron the fabric face onto fusible webbing. (I used my tracing and then made a modified version with longer hair and printed 2 sizes of the faces.)

Color face with colored pencils.

On the release paper of a piece of fusible webbing, draw a dress/body pattern to go with the face.

Select fabric for the background and dress.

Iron fusible webbing to the dress/body fabric.

Cut out the face and dress/body pieces.

Place a teflon sheet or release paper pulled off a piece of fusible webbing under the girly. Peel the release paper from the dress and place the head, arms and legs. Iron carefully to secure the girl dress, body and head together. Trim extra fabric near shoulders.

Piece the background fabric, then create a quilt sandwich. Ensure the background fits the size of the girl – not too big and not too small.

Use decorative stitches on the sewing machine to create a stitched background and trim the quilt. (Sometimes I doodle with free motion quilting on the background instead of using the decorative stitches.)

(here’s what the back of the quilt looks like at this point)

Remove all release paper from the girly and place her on the background. Iron.

Sew around the girly with black thread. Sew the lines in the hair as well.

Embellish the girly – with decorative machine stitches, lace or trims.

Square up the quilt if needed and bind (pre-made binding is great for this).

Add embellishment to the quilt. Dimensional embellishments such as these tiny metal frames or buttons that need to be hand stitched are added after machine stitching the hand written sentiment.

Here’s what the back of the quilt looks like at the end. The hangers haven’t been stitched on yet, but I wanted to show where they will be.