Thursday, September 26, 2013

Quilting with Freezer Paper Templates


My favorite way to quilt is free styling with my darning foot or straight line with my walking foot, but occasionally I want to try a new motif that I need to work on how to FMQ.  So I make a template using freezer paper for this purpose.  I also sometimes make a freezer paper template to fit a border or specific space. 

I did both of these for this fall quilt that I made last September.

Here is how I did this:

 
I made my own freezer paper stencils sized for my quilt.
I drew the design on the paper side and pressed the plastic coated side to my quilt with a warm iron to hold them in place for quilting.
 
 
I decided to do primitive 5 point stars for this quilt
 to compliment the fabrics and design.
Now that I have done these a few times, I think I could easily make these stars free form, but these stencils helped me learn
and to keep them uniform in size.


 
I cute the centers out of the stars carefully with a sharp craft knife.



I prepared the quilt sandwich and pinned on the outer edges only,
back and front.
 
 
I actually use as few pins as possible on quilts. 
I am very careful to smooth front and back a few times and move pins as needed before I am ready to quilt. While quilting, I turn the quilt over frequently to be sure I have no folds in my backing. This works best for a small quilt, of course, but I use the same method for a larger quilt on my home machine.  Sometimes I pin only one section as I work on it and remove and repin for the next section for a larger quilt.
Works for me!
 

 
I laid my templates on my quilt and pressed in place with a warm iron.
The templates peel off easily to be moved and reused
and leave no marks on my fabric.

 
For these templates I "quilted inside the lines,"

 
 I started in the middle and did the individual stars first.
 
 
The I did the small two star templates in the sashing.
 
 
Then I did the outside borders

 
 I planned my way and marked my template with direction arrows
and where to start, turn and finish.
 
 
Here is the turn on the other end.
 

 
I keep my iron handy for touch ups as needed.
 
 
Sometimes I need to add a little tape for the longer templates to keep it fixed and to help the edges from curling.
I then need to be careful not to touch the tape with the hot iron.
 

 
Then I placed moved the template to the opposite side.
These two sides had five stars and went corner to corner.
 
 
For the other two sides, I only needed to fit three stars in between the stars on the corners.  I used the same stencil only
I marked the turn for the shorter borders.
 

These templates are durable and can be reused
 

 ... and saved for another day.
 
 
I have used freezer paper templates and guides for other quilts, too.
 


On this table runner I wanted a uniform size and shape and
I quilted outside the edges of the template.
I just moved the template as I went along. 
 

Then I made parallel quilting lines outward to the edge of the tablerunner.
 
 
For this quilt, I used the template as a guide
 
 
to keep the curve uniform on each flower petal.
 
I hope you have found this tutorial helpful.
 
Happy Quilting!
 
~ <3> ~
 

9 comments:

Frederika said...

wow so beautiful. Thank you for sharing this tutorial.

Ellen said...

Great tips - thank you.

Linda said...

Great tutorial. Thanks for sharing and I will be trying this for sure.

Jeanie said...

I hadn't thought about cutting the templates out so that you could reuse the paper. I always rip and tear to remove them. Thanks for the great idea.... and the quilt is really cute!

Dorian said...

Great ideas my Friend! Thank you so much for sharing :)

sandra said...

Thanks for the tutorial, I am just starting to learn FMQ and I need all the help I can get.

Home Sewn By Us said...

Hi Pat! This is a great idea. I'm trying to use this technique with some paisley shapes if I can figure out exactly what will work. I'm glad I stumbled upon this on Pinterest! ~smile~ Roseanne

Judy said...

Great idea, I will have to try this. Thanks for sharing!!

Birdie said...

What a great idea! I was just going to quilt my UFO. It was an UFO because I wasn't sure how I was going quilt this giant quilt. LOL. Your article couldn't come at a better time. Thank you! So much for sharing.