Last year I bought a Sizzix Big Shot Plus and can’t rave about it enough. I did a lot of research on cutting machines. I decided on this one because it fits everyone’s dies, including accuquilt. It really does I have used both brands. The things that convinced me most was a woman who posted that she had severe rheumatoid arthritis and buying a cutting machine allowed her to do her quilting again. Because I have lupus and sometimes my hands can really hurt this was a huge selling point for me. That’s the up side ( there are other reasons to purchase a cutting machine), so the down side is the cost of the dies and the fabric waste. I do the best I can to find everything on sale and if your like me you have more fabric than you know what to do with.
I bought the bottle die from Hobby Lobby on clearance for less than 7 dollars. it makes a super modern quilt especially with the Lavish Collection from Art Gallery fabrics.
I made 4 strips from each of the 8 fabrics about 7 1/2 inches long each. the machine can handle 8 layers so lay the strips on top of each other and lay on die, run through machine. Now flip the fabric since this is a mirror image die. Run through flipping back and forth.
I made 2 rows, with 4 fabrics in each. I set this up at my sewing table. This quilt is not a beginner’s project because of the curved sewing.Start sewing 1/4inch seams, sew bottles right sides together and flip every other bottle to get them nestled together. It will show you on the package.
When I sewed, I kept my right hand on top of the bottom bottle and guided it. My left hand kept the 2 bottle pieces separate and guided the top bottle. I sewed slowly, needle down, and raised my presser foot every once in a while and just slowly manipulated the shapes .
Once I did 28 bottles per row, then I sewed rows together. When you sew the rows,make sure you line up the bottle necks and bottle bases like the photo.
I then made my quilt sandwich and used an Aurifil variegated pink thread and just outlined the bottles. I wanted to do more heavier quilting but I used a minkee type backing and it did not float on my machine to do nice free motion feathers. Quilt measure 461/2 x 57″. I love it! Hope you do too!
for the pillow:
I had left over bottles so this is a perfect little pillow to complement the quilt. Take a piece of white cotton 15 x 18″. To make the bottles I used Whisper lite, it looks like a super thin non fusible interfacing. I’m not even sure if it’s available anymore. You can use anything light weight. Take one piece of the lightweight interfacing and put right sides together to a bottle. Sew all the way around 1/4″ seam. In the center of the interfacing cut a 1″ line and turn the bottle inside out. Use a boning tool or what ever you have to poke out the corners, press.
To make stems I just fused some double side fusible web to a 4 x 5′ piece green solid cotton and then just randomly cut small strips with my rotary cutter trying to make them a little irregular. Find the center of your white fabric, lay out your stems and bottles for placement, My bottles are not in a straight line, You choose for your pillow, just remember that you have only 12″ to work with. Fuse your stems down, Pin your bottles below stem and sew a narrow seam all the way around the bottle. Once all your bottles are in place make a quilt sandwich and free motion the stems in green, free motion the white background with some stippling. I traced my pillow edges so I knew where to put my binding.
My binding is 2 layers.
First the fuchsia is a narrow binding that I cut 1 inch strips, ironed them in half wrong sides together and put them on the pillow, sewed in place. I made piping out of the left over black, sewed that in place. (Don’t know how to make your own piping? look here, piping makes everything look finished. I think. I also show how to make the backing so that you can change your form out for season changes and such. These embellished flowers are some of the flowers I worked on last week. I will write a post about all of my fabric flowers sometime soon. I love them!. Take 8 circles ( I make mine in sizzix, don’t have one…use a punch or a glass as a pattern), fold the circles in half and then in half again, Use a small felt circle and sew the corner ( where they all fold together) in the center of the felt circle, add 3 more, then add another row of 4 but shift them a little, I glued buttons in the center and then I hand stitched the flower in place by sewing the felt circle to the pillow. Insert your form and you have a super cute pillow to go with your quilt!
Be Happy and keep making and doing!Colleen