Sea Mist Flower Applique

Applique is always fun to do especially when I’m using beautiful batiks. Small quilt projects like mini wall hangings, pillows and mug rugs are some of my favorite things to make and are wonderful for gifts.

Sea Mist Flower is shown as a little 12-inch wall hanging, I also made a pillow with the same design.

Purchase an ad-free printable PDF version of the Sea Mist Flower tutorial in my shop.

12-inch square mini quilt

Supplies needed:

• 24 – 2 ½ inch squares – A charm pack can be cut into fourths for 2 ½ inch squares.
• Or use scraps of your choice
• 1 – 8 ½ inch cream or white square for center (use the same fabric for your backing and you only need 1 fat quarter)
• 1 – piece of backing fabric 14 x 14 or 1 fat quarter
• 1 – piece of batting 14 x 14
• Iron on adhesive of your choice for applique, I used Heat n Bond Lite
• Scraps for applique
• 1 fat quarter for binding – cut 4 – 2 ½ inch strips

Sewing the center block

• Choose 4 of your 2 ½ inch blocks to use as corners on your 8 ½ inch square center block.
• Place on the corners with the right side facing down.
• Mark or iron a crease in the center and sew a diagonal line from corner to corner across each square.

Trim ¼ inch away from the stitching lines and press.

You now have your center completed.

Now add the borders

• Sew using a ¼-inch seam allowance
• Sew 4 – 2 ½ inch squares together in a row
• Repeat this step

• Sew 6 – 2 ½ inch squares together in a row
• Repeat this step

Sew the short sides (4 squares) to the center block, then add the top and bottom rows.

Note:  I like to add my flower appliqué, especially the stem before I put the bottom row on. That way the stem appliqué is caught in the seam.

Now you are ready to appliqué your flower. I added my batting before I did the appliqué but not the backing.

Trace your appliqué shape on to your iron-on adhesive. I use Heat n Bond Lite but there is Wonder Under and several other brands. Just follow the directions on the type you buy. It will also tell you how long to apply heat.

I do appliqué several different ways. Sometimes I do the appliqué as a free motion wiggle stitch and other times I do a free motion straight stitch. You can also use the blanket stitch or other stitches on your sewing machine.

Here is a photo of my back after appliquéing the flower. Then I will add the backing and do the rest of the free motion quilting.

Here is a photo to show how I stitched along the edge of the design. I put a free-motion foot on and also did some little circles in the center of the flower.

I am using a free motion foot and have the feed dogs dropped on my old vintage sewing machine (you don’t need a fancy machine to do this). I am using a Top stitching needle size 80 and a 40 wt. 100% Tribal Polyester embroidery thread. I also used the same thread in a different color to stipple quilt the background.

When doing appliqué it is always a good idea to use a new needle. I usually use an Schmetz 80/12 needle. I also use a variety of threads, sometimes cotton and sometimes a polyester embroidery thread. I use a vintage 15-91 Singer sewing machine that seems to like almost all threads.

Binding

Before I add the binding, I like to use 2 – 4-inch squares that match the backing, fold diagonally and attach to the top corners. You can now use a small dowel to hang your quilt up.

Bind in your preferred way. I like to sew my binding on by machine using my tutorial.

Your mini Sea Mist Flower wall hanging is finished.

18-inch Sea Mist Pillow

I made this block again and then added a border to make it larger enough for a pillow.

Making the pillow

Supplies needed

• 56 – 2 ½ inch print squares – A charm pack can be cut into fourths for 2 ½ inch squares.
• ½ yard cream or white square (use the same fabric for your pillow backing)
• 18-inch pillow form

Make the center of the pillow using the directions above.

Borders

• Cut two 1½-inch x 12½-inch strips of your cream or white fabric
• Sew to the sides of your 12½-inch center square
• Cut two 1½-inch x 14½-inch strips of your cream or white fabric
• Sew to the other two sides of your square
• Sew 7 – 2½-inch squares together
• Repeat this step and then sew to the sides of your block
• Sew 9 – 2½-inch square together
• Repeat this step and then sew to the other two sides

For the pillow I once again did free-motion quilting but did a little wiggly zig zag.

FINISHING THE PILLOW

ENVELOPE STYLE PILLOW BACK:

For this pillow I decided to do an envelope style pillow back as I had plenty of the background fabric.

Each backside piece will be the same width as the front side and ½ of the length plus 4 inches.

This will account for seams and create an overlap which is the envelope part. If you make the pieces too short, you will have a gap when you insert the pillow form.

For example, my pillow is 18 inches so 1/2 of that is 9 inches + 4= 13 inches.

Cut two pieces of the print 18″ x 13″ for the pillow back. On each piece fold the one side under ¼” and press.

On one piece fold under another 1” and topstitch it. On the other piece fold under ¼″ and topstitch.

Place the 1″ top stitched piece face down on the pillow top, then place the ¼” top stitched piece face down on top of it. Pin the pieces to the front of the pillow.

Stitch around the pillow with a ¼” seam allowance. Double stitch over the area where the back pieces overlap. This will make the stitches stronger.

Turn the pillow right side out and press. Now all you have to do is add a pillow insert like a Hobbs 18″ x 18″ poly-down insert.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! This blog post has been converted to an optional PDF that’s optimized for printing.

Purchase an ad-free printable PDF version of the Sea Mist Flower tutorial in my shop.

Here is the template for the flower, click on the image for the full size flower.