Quilts Inspired By Art: Hello Baby Week Three

We have a finished quilt! Welcome to the third week of the first project in our Quilts Inspired by Art series. If you are joining us for the first time this week, check out how we got here:

Week One: Introduce the Inspiration Art for the Month and Discuss Fabric Options
Week Two: Cutting and Piecing Instructions for the Quilt Top
Week Three: That's This Week!

This week, we'll be learning how to add lettering to our quilt top along with options for quilting the quilt.

Here is the original greeting card that inspired this quilt. It comes to us from Linda Aarus at Polka Dots and Paper.

This is where we left off last week. Borders have now been added and it is time to add letters. Since this is intended to be a quilt for a baby or young child, I wanted a fitting word. "hugs" seemed like just the right word for this quilt.

ADDING LETTERS

To audition letters, use your computer and any word processing software to try out fonts and sizes. To stay true to our inspiration art, the letters are similar in size. The font is different only because the simpler the font, the easier it is to apply to the quilt. I tend to like simple fonts better anyway.

To make sure the letters line up nicely, mark a straight line for the bottom of the letters to sit on. I used a blue water soluble pen for my line.

Use a fusible product to adhere the letters to the quilt. Keep in mind that the fusible will go on the back of the letters. This means the letters need to be reversed. I turned over my printed pages and outlined the letters with a pen so the reverse letters could be seen good enough to be traced.

The fusible product I am using is Steam A Seam 2 Lite. Since there is paper on both sides, lift up a corner to determine which side has the "glue". The glue side will be rough. Be sure to draw on the paper that has the rough side underneath.

Trace the reversed letters on the fusible paper. Do not cut out the letters yet. Cut around them enough so they will fit on your fabric. Peel the paper (the one without the rough feel) and lay the letters on the WRONG side of the fabric. Wrong is emphasized only because it is a common error to accidentally iron the fusible to the right side of your fabric, which is wrong. Ha. Follow the manufacturers instructions for your product to iron the fusible to the wrong side of your fabric. Now, cut out the letters.

Do one more dry run with your letters to make sure you are happy with the placement.

Carefully peel the paper off the back of each letter and place it on the quilt.

Remember how I used a blue water soluble pen to make a line for my letters? Well, that needs to be removed before any final pressing begins. If you don't, pressing can sometimes make those water soluble lines permanent. I used a spray bottle to wet the area and let it dry. Again, fuse the letters to your quilt according to the instructions with your fusible product.

The fusing is not permanent so the letters need to be secured with stitching before the quilt is washed. There are two primary ways to do this. The first way is to stitch them down before the quilt top is layered and quilted. Many traditional quilts use a blanket stitch for this, but any stitch will work as long as the edges of the letters are stitched to the quilt. The other way is to stitch them down during the quilting, which is what I did for this project.

QUILTING SUGGESTIONS

The quilting options always seem endless. An all over design would be nice on this quilt, either straight line or free motion. I'm going to try that with the second version of this quilt (which you will see shortly), but for this version, it is quilted in zones. That means there is different quilting in each area of the quilt.

For the print and the red fabric that make up the horizontal and vertical stripes in the quilt, I used straight lines a half inch apart in coordinating thread.

The blue background is quilted with large circles except around the word "hugs" where the circles are smaller to form a "cloud" around the word and also to help secure the letters to the quilt. The red border is quilted with straight lines and the outer border alternates between a large circle and straight lines.

The quilting is a little easier to see from the back of the quilt.

The final quilt represents its inspiration art quite nicely. I consider this quilt to be the boy version.

Here is the girl version. The top is complete. This one is going to have "xoxo" instead of a word. The quilting will be an all over free motion flower design. I'm hoping to share it in finished form next week.

In three short weeks, we've made it from idea to finished quilt. Next week will be our final week on this project. We'll take one more look at our quilts as compared to our inspiration art and I'll roll out this project in pattern form. In February, it will be time to take on a new art inspiration piece.

Linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt. Also linking up with Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story and Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.