My Brother's Quilt - DIY Hanger

For small (less than 8"x10") art quilts, my preference is to display them on a shelf.  However, some of the people I gift them to would prefer to hang them on the wall.  One option is matting and framing, but I wanted my brother to have the option of just hanging his bear.

I tried attaching a loop to the back of the quilt, but it was hard to place the loop so that the quilt would hang close to level.  I thought about just gluing a pre-made hanger like this on the back, but I didn't have one on hand.

I decided I could do something similar in fabric using the button hole attachment on my maching.

I cut a 3"x3" square from the backing fabric.  I made a small envelope by folding right sides together leaving about 3/8" of fabric showing.
  








Then I stitched the sides and turned the envelope right side out. 







I gave it a good press and folded the flap into the envelope.

I cut a piece of Craft Fuse, slipped it into the envelope and fused it with an iron.  Now, I was ready to sew a button hole close to the folded edge of the envelope.





After completing the button hole and slicing it open with a seam ripper, I cut two pieces of Steam a Seam II.  The larger piece is for the back of the hanger; the smaller is to stick inside and seal the flap.






Here's the hanger fused to the little quilt.

A Gift for My Brother

My brother lives in the desert, and I try to create a desert-themed card or hanging for his birthday each year.  Last year, I used Kokopelli as my inspiration.  This year, I used the bear pictograph.  While I was working on this year's card, I happened to take Lola Jenkins' "Thread Art" workshop on Craftsy.  She is a great teacher and she really encourages her students to just do.  There are no mistakes!

One of my fellow students posted the class project quilted with four quadrants of closely spaced lines.  Wow!  What an awesome idea for the background of my little project.

Well, now I had my subject and the background quilted.  How to color it.  I really wanted to use colored pencils like Lola demonstrated in her class, but all my attempts ended up muddy instead of subdued multi-color.  I finally used a Stained yellow marker for the outline and Shiva iridescent oil sticks for the interior of the bear. 

I set the project aside so I could cogitate on how I wanted to cut my little masterpiece.  Originally, I had planned to make a 8" x 6" card, but that was before I did all of the marvelous background quilting.  Yesterday afternoon, I picked up my scissors and cut it with wavy edges to suggest the piece was done on a piece of hide.

Next step, how was I going to finish the edges?  I didn't want a satin stitched border or blind facing.  So I decided to go with a widely spaced zigzag.  After I finished zigzagging around the edge, inspiration struck.  Why not run two or three rows of straight stitching around the edge?

For this piece, I felt I had come up with a perfect solution.  I will also be using this finish on some of my card-sized quilts.

The final problem was how to provide a way to hang this little  (9" x 7") quilt?  I'll share my solution with you tomorrow.

Introduction

I started quilting about 11 years ago.  Six months ago, I walked away from the wonderful sport of dog agility.  Since that left me lot's of free time and no outlet for my creativity, I decided to threw myself back into quilting.

I did my first craft show last December.  I made back my entry fees plus a bit more (which I prompted spent at Joann's).  I needed to come up with a name for my booth, and naming is really not my thing.  I finally came up with Just Sew Quilts.  The name fits a couple of levels.

• First, I'm pretty damn anal, and I like things to be just so.  "Perfect is the enemy of the good" was coined for people like me.
• I tend to get bogged down in the foraging-for-a-project stage, when what I need to do is move away from mining the net and just sew something on my machine.

My primary interest is creating small art quilts.  I've done lot's of quilts 8x10 and smaller, and I'd like to graduate to some larger wall hangings, but probably nothing bigger than 24"x36" so that the quilting doesn't become an odious chore on my domestic machine.

Come along for the journey.  Hopefully, you will find some useful information.