Puppy Bow

 Happy Monday morning!  My little puppy quilt is almost complete.  Instead of sharing my quilt top progress today I decided to share how I made the bows for this cute little free Westie quilt block.

My original plan was to hand draw the bow and make applique templates.  Well doesn't that sound like a lot of work?!  Why not just sew a real bow to the block?  Sounds soooo much easier.  

Now remember the fabrics in these blocks are all old shirts.  So I can't tell you how long to cut your pieces, but I can tell you how long to sub cut them.  You'll need one strip that is 1.5" wide by at least 5" long.  And one piece that is cut 1" wide and at least 1.75" long.  On the 1.5" piece, press a quarter inch seam on both long sides.  On the 1" wide piece press the long edges towards the center.  Stitch down both sides of the 1.5" strip after turning the edges.  Sub cut the 1.5" strip into 5" lengths.  Cut the 1" inch wide piece into 1.75" lengths.  This might make more sense if you look at the pictures below.

Okay now that everything is pressed, stitched and cut let's add a few drops of applique glue(washable school glue works too!)  I use these handy close pins to hold them while they dry.  Now would be a good time to have a chocolate and pet some pretty fabrics in the stash.

Or in my case look for my camera tripod....it's still lost.  So lets improvise...cloths pins for fingers.  A picture is a 1,000 words so I'm going let the next group of pictures speak for themselves.

The only reason the pin is in the first picture below is because I needed my hands to take the picture.  You gals understand that you can add the glue without pinning.  Again I used cloths pins to hold it tight.  Or you could use your iron on Medium heat to set the glue.  I let mine dry with cloths pins while I caught up on some wifely chores.

Now that they're dry we can attach them to the cute little puppy using a medium heat setting.

Since the red shirt fabric was kinda thick I also pressed from the backside just to make sure it was good and dry.

It's really hard to see my invisible stitching....hence the name INVISIBLE.   The red dashed line below shows where I stitched.  I wanted the bow to maintain as much "fluffy" as it could and still be secure.

Here's the finished block.   I put the scissors and pencil in the bow just to show where I didn't stitch.

Hope this answered your questions Britney. 

~ Lea Anne ~

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