HCB: Happy Trees Mini Quilt

Hello, hello. I cannot believe how fast November is flying by! Here we are, nearing the end of our Holiday Craft Bash.

Today, I've got a little mini quilt tutorial for you. This little mini definitely gives me a Bob Ross vibe.

When I was planning my project for this week, I wanted to use some of the scraps generated by my Hexagon Tree Skirt.

List of materials:
fabric scraps, cut into triangle shapes
Fusible interfacing (I use Pellon SF 101)
Batting (approx. FQ size)
Fat quarter of background fabric
fat quarter of backing fabric
1/4" yard of binding fabric
small scraps for tree trunks
Basting spray I use the June Taylor brand, found at Joann) or safety pins

Directions

1) Iron interfacing to wrong side of tree and tree trunk pieces. I laid mine out on a strip and ironed all at once. Just make sure you don't iron directly on the interfacing!

2) Cut out all pieces.

3) Baste your background fabric to your batting.

4) Plan your layout. Make sure you work with at least a 2" border, and lay out the trees in a desirable fashion.
At this point, it's helpful to take a picture of your layout!

5) Pin your first tree (starting with the trunk if applicable) to the background. Using a walking foot (if you have one), topstitch the trunk and tree to the background. You can use decorative stitches if desired.

6) Continuing with the remaining tree pieces, applique your happy trees.

I went out of order with some of my trees, to create a little interest.

7)Once you have appliqued all of your trees, create a ground level with a few lines of quilting. I used brown thread for this, but feel free to use whatever feels right! You could use white for snow, perhaps. But in Texas, the ground is brown in the winter.

8) Now, we need to attach our backing fabric. Baste the back fabric to the other side of the batting.

9) Now, quilt around the trees! You could choose to quilt over them, but I like the effect of quilting around them.
I tried to create some movement with wavy lines. Have fun with this!

10) When you are satisfied with your quilting, trim your mini down to the desired size. My mini is 16" x 19". Make sure you leave at least an inch border, so your trees don't get covered up by the binding!

11) Make binding. I used 2 1/2" binding with a 3/8" seam allowance.

Apply your binding to the front of the quilt using your machine.

12)Apply your binding to the second side. I adore the hand sewing process on the second side, but you can surely apply it by machine if that's your thing!

13)Admire your forest of happy trees!

Please be sure to check out the other tutorials from this week!

Debbie and I were thinking along the same lines. Check out her Christmas Tree Farm mini!

Meredith is sharing her santa canvas (that you might recognize from our graphic!), and Jessica made a Frosty Advent Calendar! As always, if you make something from our tutorials, please add it to the Holiday Craft Bash flickr group!

We're taking a break for the Thanksgiving holiday next week, but I'll have my last installment up the following Thursday!