{"id":9012,"date":"2010-09-16T21:14:34","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T01:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=9012"},"modified":"2015-02-01T16:40:13","modified_gmt":"2015-02-01T21:40:13","slug":"flannel-board-quilting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/16\/flannel-board-quilting\/","title":{"rendered":"Flannel Board Quilting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

24″ quilt for American Girls dolls<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve always wished I could come up with a catchier name for this technique, but Flannel Board Quilting<\/em> is the best I can do.\u00c2\u00a0 Through the years in various classes taught and articles written,\u00c2\u00a0I have\u00c2\u00a0called it Grid Quilting<\/em> or Faux Quilting<\/em>, but none of those titles pleased me any more than Flannel Board<\/em>, which has a meaningful basis.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0But enough about the name.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a very useful technique for quick and easy projects.\u00c2\u00a0 Let me\u00c2\u00a0 tell you about it.<\/p>\n

The idea for this\u00c2\u00a0method originated from a request by sweet Debbieanne Prusserman, hostess of the New England Academy of NeedleArts\u00c2\u00a0 doll school held on Cape Cod some years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Mildred\u00c2\u00a0 Turner and I were the teachers and had been charged with designing an American Girl’s wardrobe.\u00c2\u00a0 The school was fabulous and we had a grand time, staying in Debbieanne’s historic 1790 home and teaching in her studio with a group of wonderful ladies.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the school, we toured Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard with Debbieanne, her charming mother Mary and one of our students.\u00c2\u00a0 This student was\u00c2\u00a0a darling lady who drove like a New York taxi driver in her mini van which belted out seafaring chants with no more\u00c2\u00a0provocation than a bump in the road.\u00c2\u00a0And there were lots of bumps. \u00c2\u00a0Mildred and I alternated between laughter and prayer. But that’s another story.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Flannelboardiag2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n

Now back to the technique.\u00c2\u00a0 Before the school was held and after\u00c2\u00a0Mildred and I\u00c2\u00a0were busily designing and sewing at home in our individual sewing rooms, Debbieanne called to request that I teach a doll quilt\u00c2\u00a0in a night class.\u00c2\u00a0 My response was immediate and enthusiastic. “Sure!\u00c2\u00a0 I would love that!!!”<\/p>\n

But then came\u00c2\u00a0Debbieanne’s bombshell.\u00c2\u00a0 None of the ladies had ever quilted.\u00c2\u00a0 And\u00c2\u00a0there would be 3 hours of class to make the quilt.\u00c2\u00a0 Whew!\u00c2\u00a0 That was a big order.<\/p>\n

The first thing I thought about was the 2-3,000 2″ squares left over from my brief fling with watercolor quilting (which I loved).\u00c2\u00a0 After several ho-hum little quilts, I came up with the simple but do-able project shown above.<\/p>\n

This is not a quilt in the traditional sense, with three layers of a top,\u00c2\u00a0batting and backing.\u00c2\u00a0 It is simply a piece of flannel with the raw-edged print fabric fixed in place with decorative stitch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"BRITE\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Essentially, the concept is dependent on a grid.\u00c2\u00a0On a 24″ square of chunky, lush flannel I drew a 2″ grid with a washaway marking pen.\u00c2\u00a0 The plan was to place\u00c2\u00a0novelty print\u00c2\u00a0squares on the grid, creating a snowball pattern, and stitching them down with a wide decorative stitch.\u00c2\u00a0It reminded me of the flannel boards I used teaching Sunday School, hence the name, Flannel Board Quilting.<\/p>\n

It didn’t take me long to figure out that butting\u00c2\u00a0a 2″ square to a half square triangle made little sense.\u00c2\u00a0 The fabric shifted as I stitched and invariably, in a few places, the ivory base fabric peeked through.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Flannelboardiag3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So instead, I used a 2″ x 4″ rectangle and folded one\u00c2\u00a0corner under.\u00c2\u00a0 This created the second shape shown on the above.<\/p>\n

In the same manner, diagonally opposite corners of a 4″ square were folded under to create the third shape needed.\u00c2\u00a0 In both instances, this fold over prevented the exposure of a bias edge which would be most likely to ravel.<\/p>\n

All the pieces were\u00c2\u00a0held in place with a glue stick or pin and then basted\u00c2\u00a01\/4″ from the raw edge.\u00c2\u00a0 Next, a 5\u00c2\u00a0mm\u00c2\u00a0feather stitch was worked over the raw edges and through the all pieces where the grid was covered.\u00c2\u00a0 This not only secured the print pieces but\u00c2\u00a0trapped the raw edges so that they\u00c2\u00a0could not\u00c2\u00a0ravel.\u00c2\u00a0 By stitching through the whole pieces, the illusion of an honestly pieced quilt was perpetuated. However, the snowball portion was left unstitched so that a machine embroidery could be placed there.<\/p>\n

The print fabric\u00c2\u00a0I selected for this project\u00c2\u00a0featured teddy bears.\u00c2\u00a0 In the center of each snowball, a heart was fussy cut so that a bear was in the center of the machine embroidered applique’ heart.<\/p>\n

I have\u00c2\u00a0two tips for executing this kind of quilting.\u00c2\u00a0 First, heavily starch and press the\u00c2\u00a0print fabric\u00c2\u00a0before cutting.\u00c2\u00a0 This gives a clean edge with no ravels before the stitching is begun.\u00c2\u00a0 There\u00c2\u00a0are no wandering threads to\u00c2\u00a0corral as the decorative stitching\u00c2\u00a0is worked.<\/p>\n

Secondly, use the same color\u00c2\u00a0 thread in the bobbin as in the needle.\u00c2\u00a0 By doing so, the back side of the quilt shows\u00c2\u00a0 the pattern and is more attractive and interesting than if ivory thread were used.<\/p>\n

The border was another whole matter, to be addressed another time.\u00c2\u00a0 But even a simple binding would work.<\/p>\n

This is such a fun technique, inspired by necessity and Debbieanne’s request.\u00c2\u00a0The flannel board quilting method was used on the Gingham Dog and Calico Cat Quilt<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0 showown in a previous post.\u00c2\u00a0 I have several other examples that will be posted at a later date.\u00c2\u00a0 But I hope this gives you some ideas for projects of your own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve always wished I could come up with a catchier name for this technique, but Flannel Board Quilting is the best I can do.\u00c2\u00a0 Through the years in various classes taught and articles written,\u00c2\u00a0I have\u00c2\u00a0called it Grid Quilting or Faux … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,18,3,38],"tags":[933,681,934],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9012"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9012"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33597,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9012\/revisions\/33597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}