Crazy Quilt Embroidery School - Lesson Five: Use Your Skills Tutorial

Now that you have followed the lessons for Crazy Quilt Embroidery School, you can create lovely seams for quilt blocks or even use the stitching for embellishing jeans and blouses or bordering hoop art or framed embroidery designs.

If you are looking for a small project right away, here's a little faux  fan quilt block lavender sachet you can make in a jiffy.

I would not recommend the project for a pincushion because I have not pieced the block but laid down the pieces using fusible iron-on web. This makes a fabric top a bit too thick for pins and needles. However, if you would very much like to make this into a pincushion, you can stitch the pieces down using a straight stitch and sewing thread close to the outer edges. Then you can embroider the seams and the piece will serve as a pincushion.

Materials needed:
fan block template (download by clicking the link)
scraps of fun fabrics (duponi silk, satin, quilting cotton, linen)
7" square piece of muslin (US)/ calico(AUS)
6" square fabric for the back
iron-on fusible web
iron
stranded cotton embroidery floss (a variety of colors)
embroidery needle
dried lavender flowers
crochet cotton or yarn 

Print and cut the fan block template into its pieces. Trace each piece onto the paper side of fusible web and cut out these pieces as shown - some pieces have a little overlap allowance.

Iron the fusible web to the back of the fabric scraps, and cut them out around the paper. Pull off the paper back. Now they are ready to iron onto the foundation fabric.

Iron the pieces onto the fabric in the order shown below. The fan pieces will overlap the inner curve of the long edge, but should rest up right against each other on the sides. The pointed corner is the last to be ironed on.

Use your favorite colors and stitches to decorate the seams. I used 3 and 4 strand lengths of the embroidery floss.

Stitch the front to the backing fabric leaving an opening at the bottom for turning and filling. Turn right side out and press out the seams carefully with a warm iron.

Fill with lavender and stitch the opening closed using a ladder stitch.

I simply used some crochet cotton I had an a conveniently sized needle case as a base to make a four tassles, one for each corner. 

There you go! A great faux pieced quilt block sachet using stunningly simple crazy quilt seam embroidery.

Crazy Quilt Embroidery School - Lesson Two

Seam 3: Feather stitch, Straight stitch, French knot

Bring the needle to the front of the fabric at the top left prong of the first feather. Be sure to leave the tiny dots alone. These are for french knots.

Insert the needle into the opposite prong, and bring the needle to the back leaving a loop of thread still at the front.

Now bring the needle back to the front at the bottom of the first feather, which is the bottom of the V. Pull the thread through to make the first stitch.

You can continue to make stitches by inserting the needle at the end of the next V prong and bringing the needle back up at the bottom of the V while wrapping the thread around the needle. Be sure to work the actual V. There are tricky straight stitch lines on both sides of some of the Vs.

Work the straight stitches on either side of the Vs. 

Add french knots where the little dots are. Bring the needle to the front of the fabric right next to a dot.

Wrap the thread around the needle twice.

Insert the needle into the fabric just a couple of threads away from where you started and gently pull the wrapped threads close to the needle. 

Pull the needle to the back of the fabric drawing the thread through to make a knot.

Seam 4: Chevron stitch

Bring the needle and thread to the front of the fabric on the left side of the first stitch. Insert the needle at the other end of this small stitch and bring it to the back leaving a loop of thread.

Bring the needle and thread back to the front in the middle of this stitch which is at the end of that upside down V line. Pull the thread through.

 Make a stitch over the long line and then stitch the top "cap" stitch.

Once again bring the needle back up in the middle of the small stitch which is the end of the next long line. Continue making long and short stitches.

That's all for this lesson. Seam 5 is next!