Fussy cutting made easy with assorted plastic templates from Heirloom

Welcome back! Yesterday on QUILTsocial I showed you how to make a quick and easy crib quilt and introduced you to the UNIQUE QUILTING Numbered Marking Pins.

Today, I’ll be talking to you about HEIRLOOM Assorted Plastic Templates – 8¼” x 11¾” – 6 pcs.

Note: Don’t use with an iron.

The package comes with a total of six sheets, four of which have a grid and two which are plain plastic templates. Now, if you’ve been following some of my previous posts you know that I love the versatility of rulers, so, when I was asked to write a post on these plastic template sheets I had to say yes!

One of the benefits of these sheets is that they’re great to use when you need to fussy cut and a ruler doesn’t quite work. Today, using these templates, I’ll show you how to make a sharply dressed bear quilt block that can be used on its own or as the start of a larger quilt top.

Our bear’s body, paws and snout will be appliqued using a pattern that is printed directly onto HEATNBOND® EZ Print™ Lite Iron-On Adhesive as I demonstrated in a previous QUILTsocial post.

To make the bear’s vest I will be using HEATNBOND® Lite Iron-On Adhesive Sheets as I showed in one of my QUILTsocial post’s last month.

Download the PDF template below and print it onto a sheet of HEATNBOND EZ Print Lite following the manufacturer’s instructions. Loosely cut the printed shapes apart and then press the body shape to the wrong side of the fabric selected for the bear’s body. Fuse the paws and snout shapes onto a lighter colored fabric. Since a bear is supposed to be nice and cuddly, I decided to use a flannel fabric for the body and regular cotton for his snout and paws.

Once all of the pieces have been fused to the appropriate fabrics, cut out the individual pieces along the printed lines.

Now download the PDF template for the bear’s vest and print it on a plain piece of paper.

After you’ve printed the vest template onto paper, trace it onto a plastic template sheet. I would suggest that if you’re using a striped or checkered fabric you may want to use the grid template sheet. If you plan on fussy cutting the vest fabric, then you may want to use the non-grid template sheet.

First, fuse some HEATNBOND Lite Iron-On Adhesive to the wrong side of the fabric that you’re going to be using for the bear’s vest.

Place the template on the right side of the fabric and position it over the section you would like to use. Trace around the edge of the template with a fabric marker. Next, flip the template over and trace the other side of the vest on another section of the fabric.

Place the bear’s body on top of a silicone pressing sheet and then place the snout, paws and vest on top and fuse them into place.

Now that the bear is assembled it needs a background fabric to call home. The completed bear measures approximately 9″ x 7½” (size could very depending on your printer). A background fabric measuring 12½” x 12½” will be large enough to accommodate your bear.

Fuse the bear to the center of your background fabric and then blanket stitch along all of the raw edges by hand or by machine.

Once you’ve finished your applique stitching, your well-dressed bear needs some eyes – and who doesn’t like a blue eyed bear? Pick two buttons and sew them into place.

You can use this bear on its own as a small wallhanging or you can repeat all of these steps to make enough blocks to make any size of quilt top.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing how HEIRLOOM’s Assorted Plastic Templates can be used to complete this project!

Come back tomorrow for a fun way to use miscellaneous fabric strips to make blocks for a quick and easy quilt top.