Stitch, trim, sew: Final steps to making the ‘Something Fishy’ wall quilt

Yesterday, I showed you how to prepare the applique pieces for Fish 4 using HeatnBond Featherlite iron-on adhesive. Now that you have all your fish blocks finished, itʼs time to stitch them down. This can be done by hand or machine. Suitable machine stitches are a blanket stitch or similar decorative stitch, a zigzag stitch or a straight stitch. You can also stitch by hand using a blanket stitch or a running stitch. I chose a hand-stitched running stitch and a Sulky Blendables thread to finish my blocks. This is a 12-weight thread in a variegated color that gives a nice texture to the finished blocks. Here’s a close-up view of the stitching on Fish #4.

If you left extra fabric around your background blocks, now is the time to trim them to the following sizes.

• Fish 1: 13½” x 15½”
• Fish 2: 9½” x 9″
• Fish 3: 8½” x 9″
• Fish 4: 17½” x 7″

I used my Komfort Kut Rotary Cutter for this step.

Here are the trimmed blocks all ready to sew together.

Sew Fish 2 block to Fish 3 block.

Sew Fish 4 block to Fish 2 and Fish 3 block.

Sew Fish 1 to these sewn units.

Inner border

Cut 4 – 1¼” x WOF (width of fabric) strips.

Re-cut the strips to make 2 – 1¼” x 30½” and 2 – 1¼” x 17″ strips.

Sew a 1¼” x 30½” strip to the top and bottom. Press seams towards borders.

Sew a 1¼” x 17″ strip to each side. Press seams towards borders.

Outer border

Cut 4 – 4¼” x WOF strips.

Re-cut the strips to make 2 – 4¼” x 32″ and 2 – 4¼” x 24½” strips.

Sew a 4¼” x 32″ strip to the top and bottom. Press seams towards borders.

Sew a 4¼” x 24½” strip to each side. Press seams towards borders.

Now itʼs time to layer the backing, batting and quilt top to get ready for quilting. Be sure to use Odif 505 Temporary Adhesive for fabric to make this step super-easy!

Odif 505 is a temporary, repositionable, fabric adhesive used to temporarily bond fabric. Itʼs odorless and colorless and doesn’t gum up your sewing needles. And itʼs acid free and contains no Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Check out this great video that shows you how to use Odif 505.

After the quilting is finished, you’re ready to sew on the binding. Here’s my favorite way to sew on binding, but feel free to use your own method if you wish. For my method, you’ll need 4 – 3″ x WOF strips of outer border fabric.

I hope you enjoyed your undersea adventure this week as you created the ‘Something Fishy’ quilt. Hopefully, you also learned more about Odif adhesive products, HeatnBond Featherlite fusible webs, and of course we can’t get along without the wonderful Mary Ellen’s Best Press!

This is part 5 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 4: Fusing applique shapes with HeatnBond Featherlite: Light AND strong!