Bella Blvd Baby Quilt- Freezer Paper Applique Tutorial

My sister is having a baby in a few months, and it WAS a boy :)

Then... next appointment... oops!

Now it's a GIRL!

So... the boy quilt I made will have to wait for another baby, and I pulled out my adorable Sunny Happy Skies fabrics by Bella Blvd to make her a brand new (and WAY cuter) baby quilt.

I searched for a cute girly pattern and found one that I just loved!

Isn't this the cutest pattern?  It's "Daisy May" from Stitch Studios: Designs by Cyndi Walker.

The pattern can be found HERE.  I picked mine up at my local quilt shop.

This quilt uses the "Freezer paper and starch" applique method.

There's a good tutorial HERE if you want a detailed lesson.  It even has the same shape pieces.

It's a much easier method for applique that allows you to form your fabric shapes before you sew them.

This way you don't have to embroider them with a satin stitch (miles and miles of thread) or finish the edges by hand (pain in the neck).

The shapes don't have to be cut perfectly because you'll fold the edges around a "stencil template"

I cut mine several at a time.

Then you make a stencil with Reynold's Freezer Paper (not to be confused with parchment paper or wax paper- SO not the same thing.  If you want your iron to work for a long time, be sure to buy the right stuff)

See how the stencil is made HERE.

Spray starch is sprayed into a bowl, and when the foam dies down, it's "painted" on the edges of the fabric with a paint brush.

The edges of the fabric are then folded under and pulled tightly against the edges of the stencil.

Then they are ironed for a few seconds until they're completely dry.

Put a layer of freezer paper over your ironing board, too.  If you don't, your ironing board will look like burnt toast when you're done from all the cooked starch.  When you're done you just pull the freezer paper off and toss it.

The points of the petals are pulled sharp and pressed again.  Then the stencil is removed and the fabric retains it's shape.  You can re-use the stencil until it gets too soggy and loses it's form.

When that happens you just make a new one and keep chugging along.

I made 64 of these fabric petals.  It took 5 hours.  

FIVE.

That includes cutting and pressing.  I sat and watched movies a few nights in a row until they were done.

If you're gonna watch movies you might as well do something productive at the same time, right?  Ugh.

Once you get all the petals completed, the rest isn't too bad.

They are pinned on and appliqued.

The centers of the flowers were made using a Clover brand "Yo Yo Maker"- size small.

You can find these at your local quilting or fabric shop.

Yo-yo's can be made by hand, too, but this way you don't have to stress so much.

They're nearly perfect each time, and they're uniform.  The little tool is pretty cool.

The yo-yo's took about an hour.

And I watched more TV.....

I sewed the yo-yo's onto the quilt with my machine instead of by hand because it's way easier

and because I don't want a baby ripping them off and putting them in her mouth.

I love that the border uses jumbo rick-rack.  It think it's darling.

I bound the quilt with rose-style (swirly) Minky in hot pink.

Minky is the most plush snuggly awesome fabric on the planet.

I want an adult size Minky blanket I can snuggle up in.

Thank you to my mom who just happened to stop by at the perfect time to be my quilt holder for this photo.

Maybe I'll make myself a giant Minky quilt so that I can wrap up in it and watch TV the next time I have to applique for hours.... and hours...... and hours........ :)

Anyway... I think my sister is going to love it.

And luckily I don't think she reads my blog-

So it'll be a surprise!

-Tiffany