[sunshine quilt] tutorial

This was inspired by a quilt I saw on Pinterest. You can see it HERE! But I added my own twist to it.

{She has a great tutorial to go along with it as well! So if mine doesn't make sense, check hers out!}

I have a special place in my heart for the song, "You are my Sunshine" so I wanted to incorporate that for my friend and her new baby girl somehow.

And this is what I came up with!

{You can see more pics of it HERE}

Here's how you make it!

{Just like with my last quilt tutorial, this one also requires at least some basic knowledge of quilt making. If you live in AZ and want to learn how to make quilts, I highly recommend taking the beginning quilt class at ETC!}

Supplies:

1 yard of muslin or neutral

Scraps for the pennant flags {Enough fabric to make 16 4x4 squares}

Scraps for the sun {a few fat quarters should be plenty!}

1/2 yard for inner border

1 yard for outer border

1/2 yard for binding

3 yards of wonder under

2 yards for backing

Batting (crib size)

Coordinating thread {I used off white for the whole thing!}

Embroidery floss

1} Cut out a 36" x 30" piece with your muslin.

I ironed it and laid mine out on our ping pong craft table to get it ready to lay my flags out on.

I determined the composition of my pennant flags by drawing it out on paper numerous times and finally came up with this!

Next I cut out 16 4"x4" squares in coordinating fabrics and 16 4"x4" squares in wonder under. I believe I used about 13 different scraps of fabric. I ironed the two together and once that was finished I took a water soluble fabric pen and on each square on one side marked the half way point (2") and then drew a line from that mark to the two corners on the opposite side to make my triangle/pennant flag.

Then I cut them out!

Save your scraps! Cause you'll be taking those and cutting out your 17 little pennant flags.

I took one of the two scraps (doesn't matter which) and marked 1 3/4" from the corner on each side.

Cut along that line and you now have a little pennant flag. You'll need 17 of them total.

Now using the water soluble fabric pen, draw 4 swooping lines on your muslin/neutral fabric where you'll want the pennant flags to go. Take your muslin and your flags over to the ironing board and first lay out your little flags {make sure you leave an inch or two from the edge for seam allowance} and then start ironing them on. The large flags can be ironed on next.

This is what it should look like when you're done.

Next cut out a 7" square of fabric and wonder under for your sun. Iron them together. Take a some cardstock or any thick paper and cut out a 5 1/2" circle. Trace the circle on the fabric and cut out.

I took my leftover yellow pieces from my large pennant flags and very randomly cut out triangles. Didn't measure them or make them look perfect. Just cut them out so they were all in different sizes. They all varied in size from 2 1/2" to 1".

I arranged the sun and the rays on the muslin till I was happy with how it looked. I pinned them in place and took it over to the ironing board and ironed them on.

I then prematurely drew the face on and with my fabric pen. {I would wait till after you applique the flags and sun on to do this}

After everything was ironed on, I used a zig zag stitch and appliqued like crazy.

TIPS:

Zig zag stitch along the top of the large pennant flags in a long swooping line and then go back and stitch along each side of the flags.

Stitch the little pennant flags last! Avoid stitching over the larger flags.

After the applique was done, I worked on the embroidery.

I redrew the sun's face and wrote out in Word "you are my sunshine" in a font called "The only exception". You can find that font for free HERE.

It's up to you how big you want the wording to be. After I printed it out, I laid it under the muslin so I could then trace the wording with my fabric pen.

Next I turned on the Food Network, got a needle and some embroidery floss, and stitched the wording and sun's face using a back stitch.

I then cut out 4 2 1/2" x WOF strips for the inner border and sewed them on. And like I mentioned in my previous post, I was able to use my daughter's old curtains for not only this part, but for some of the flags and the backing too! Great way to save money!

After that was finished and I pressed the seams, I then cut out 5 5" x WOF strips for the outer border. I cut one of those strips in half and pieced each one with one of the other strips of fabric making 2 longer strips.

I sewed those on and pressed the seams.

And TA-DA! Top is finished! Finished this in 5 hrs!

This part is optional, but I then had my blanket quilted by a professional. You could TOTALLY do this part yourself! But I didn't have the time, nor the faith, to do it myself.

Once I got it back from the quilter, I cut out 6 2 1/4"x WOF strips for the binding, sewed it on, washed it, and this is how it turned out!

Pretty happy with how it looks and can't wait to hear what my friend, Kim, thinks about it! And also to see pics of her baby girl wrapped up in it too.

This quilt was so easy and inexpensive. A great way to use all those scraps!

Any questions about the project, feel free to post in the comment section below!

<3
Lindsey