Flowerfall: Free Tutorial for Sizzix |

Hello everyone! I hope you’ve all been enjoying some springlike weather–I know we’ve finally gotten a gorgeous day here in St. Louis and I’ve been enjoying the fresh air. Which isn’t to say that tomorrow we won’t have snow–such is this winter. But I’m sure we’re all longing for (and maybe even seeing?!) some flowers, and that’s certainly what was on my mind when I designed this quilt for Sizzix. It’s available now as a free tutorial on their blog, so please go check it out!

I had the good fortune to speak with Sizzix’s Denzil Quick and quilting specialist Linda Nitzen at last fall’s Quilt Market in Houston. We were excited about the prospect of working with one another, and this month I finally got the chance to try out my new Sizzix Fabi die cutter for the first time. I got the idea for this quilt–a gradient of falling blooms–when I first saw the die that I used to cut the appliques.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I also had the perfect palette already on hand, thanks to a tear sheet from Luxe magazine, a painting by Connecticut artist Kerri Rosenthal, and a generous selection of beautiful Oakshott cottons from Michael.

The quilt top was incredibly quick and easy to put together using the Fabi die cutter to cut the appliqués. For this project, I fused the fusible web to my fabrics before I cut them, and initially I was a little worried about having left over fabric with web fused to it. However, I was able to fold the fabrics so that I could cut multiple appliqués at once and minimize fabric waste simultaneously, which was a pleasant surprise. The whole top came together in a single afternoon, and that’s while I was watching the kiddos (who were, ironically enough, home from school for a snow day).

I backed the quilt in a cherry yellow chevron pattern, incorporating a couple extra flower appliqués.

I quilted the baby-sized quilt with a pattern of randomly meandering lines meant to evoke the flow and fall of the flower appliqués. This definitely meant stepping out of my comfort zone a bit. I quilt lines like this by first marking straight lines on the quilt top and then “wobbling” from side to side as I quilt along them. I started off by marking the lines 1 1/2″ apart, but when I quilted the wobbly lines along them, they just seemed messy. I set it aside for an evening, and when I came back to it I decided to try quilting between each pair of lines (before I ripped out the entire thing). Luckily, the additional lines filled in the empty space and allowed me enough play to make the pattern seem random instead of sloppy. I’m really glad that I persevered, because I’m now really happy with the flowing texture that the quilting lends this little quilt.

If you’re interested in making a Flowerfall quilt of your own, click over to the tutorial on the Sizzix blog. I’d love to hear what you think in the comments, and also whether you’ve ever used a die cutter for your quilting (or other craft) projects!