Using 3D elements for your wall quilt

“The earth laughs in flowers…”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is it just me, or has this weird winter seemed overly long?
In our part of the world, the traditional winter season was preempted frequently by early spring, complete with warm winds and rainy days.

It made one long for spring much earlier than normal.

That’s when I dreamed up our Laughing Flowers wall quilt, which was inspired by a line in a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem.

It’s got some 3D elements, and high definition fun — what’s life without whimsy?

Let’s get started. Here’s the materials list:

materials

• fat quarter neutral fabric
• fat quarter quilters’ muslin
• template plastic
• Firm and Flexible interfacing (the kind used to create 3D items like vases and bowls)
• fabric for quilt binding
• quilt batting
• fiber fill
• various fabric scraps
• laces and/or small doilies
• small buttons
• very firm woven fusible interfacing
• Feather Lite HeatnBond
• 505 spray
• small Clever Clips
• spring action thread snips
• air erasable marker
• Flatter pressing spray
• green pipe cleaners
• glue stick
• embroidery floss
• numbered quilting pins
• Fray Check
• ½” diameter wooden dowel
• machine embroidery thread
• Sew Smooth
• Handmaid

The woven heart flower basket is a traditional Scandinavian decoration. They’re fun to make and quite useful for all sorts of things, but they are a bit of an acquired skill.

I found a fantastic tutorial to create the woven heart basket for our wall quilt. In this tutorial, the hearts are made with heavy weight paper (which is traditional).

I wanted to see if I could ‘fabricate’ them, employing the technology of heavy-duty interfacing and Fray Check.

I was not disappointed.

Weaving these hearts takes practice. I found that using a numbering system helped to follow the tutorial until I had the muscle memory to weave a heart without thinking about it. Those cute numbered pins helped a lot! Just be careful that you don’t get scratched while you’re weaving.

Download my heart basket template:

Cut two pieces of contrasting fabric, 7″ wide  x 18″ long, as well as 7″ wide x 18″ long heavy duty woven interfacing. Fuse fabric to interfacing.

Trace with and air erasable marker. Lift the middle portion of the heart template in order to trace the pattern.

Weave the heart pieces together, then pull slightly on the sides to even the heart shape.

Apply Fray Check to all the cut edges and allow to dry.

That’s all for today. Be sure to visit tomorrow when we finish up the woven heart basket and make some flowers, as we explore using 3D elements for your wall quilt!