Name Plate Quilts - a tutorial - pics at post 36
08-15-2009, 02:04 PM
#1
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 3,061
Name Plate Quilts - a tutorial - pics at post 36
As requested, here is a tutorial on how to create name plate quilts. These are quilted banners that contain a scripted name on them. The first one I made was discussed in the following topic:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/posts/list/23965.page
It’s one that I made for my wife to hang in her school classroom. Here’s a pic of it:
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/Name_1.jpg[/IMG]
In the following tutorial, I’ll show detailed steps of how I made ones for each of my daughters, Meagan and Olivia. So these can be made for teachers, your kids, friends, etc. Or even yourself!
So, let’s get started…
I made the field of the quilt using charm packs, which are coordinated collections of fabric in 5” squares. Using 1/4” seams, the finished height of the banner is 9.5”. But you could make the squares from fat quarters, scraps, or whatever, it’s just convenient to use the charm packs. I think it’s important, however, to use fabrics with dark colors if doing a light script on them so that it shows up well. Conversely, you could use light colored squares with a dark script, etc. The possibilities are endless!
Since the finished size of the panel is 9.5” tall and will have a 1/4” binding on it, the inner field of the quilt will be 9” tall. I wanted to have about a 1.5” margin on both the top and bottom to separate the script from the binding, so that means the capital letters of the name needed to be about 6” tall.
I used Microsoft Word to layout the design of the name for each panel. I began by changing the following settings:
* Set the page layout orientation to Landscape instead of the default Portrait
* Set the Margins to 0.25” on both the top and bottom
* Set the Font Type to “Edwardian Script”
* Set the Font Size to 650.
The Font Size of 650 creates a height of about 6” for the capital letters when using the Edwardian Scripts font. Here’s how the text looked on my computer screen at this stage:
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_0.jpg[/IMG]
The “g” in “Meagan” runs off the bottom of the page, but that’s o.k., we’ll freehand that later. Also, I didn’t want that curlyque thing to the upper left of the “M”, so I just didn’t include it in mine.
Next is to go ahead and print out the pages. After printing, tape them together to form the complete name. I found it helpful to use my lined cutting map as a guide for the bottom of the pages to keep them square with each other when taping.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_1.jpg[/IMG]
The next step is to determine how wide your name plate quilt should be. Since we have a 1.5” margin on the top and bottom, we need that on each side as well. So measure how wide your printed name is and then add 3” to the result. Divide the result by 4.5” (the width of a finished charm block) to see how close you are to what you need. I was lucky with Meagan’s name plate in that it came out exactly to what I needed. Her printed name measured 24” wide, so I needed a quilt top that was 27” wide. Six charm squares times 4.5” finished size each equals exactly 27” – hurray! However, with Olivia’s, her printed name was 17”, so I needed a quilt that was 20” wide (again, 1.5” margin on each side). The finished charm square of 4.5” times 5 comes up to 22.5”, though. So I had to trim 0.5” off one side of each charm square for hers, to the finished size of hers were 4.5” tall by 4” wide. The altered 4” width times 5 squares gave me the 20” width that I needed.
All of the above is just to say that you may need to alter the width of your charm squares to come up with the right width of the finished quilt.
After I had the number of squares I needed, I laid them out to get a pleasing pattern, and then laid the printed names over each to get a quick visual of how it will look. Go ahead and set the printed names aside for now, it’ll be a while before we need them again.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_2.jpg[/IMG]
The below pic shows how the squares have all been sewn together now using a 1/4” seam allowance. I sewed each top square to the bottom square and then joined each column together. After sewing, press all seams with an iron.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_3.jpg[/IMG]
Next, we need to create the quilt sandwich of backing material, batting, and the top. The pic below shows the 3 layers which are safety-pinned together and ready for quilting.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_4.jpg[/IMG]
I used simple stitch-in-the-ditch quilting on the panels, and the pic below shows the quilted panels. They have both been trimmed to size now as well.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_5.jpg[/IMG]
I next added the binding for each panel. The binding is 1/4” wide so I used strips of fabric that are 2” wide, folded over like bias tape with wrong sides together so the binding strip is 1” wide. There are many examples in quilt books on how to do this, so I’m not going to go into it here. Suffice it to say, just do a 1/4” binding in your own preferred method. My preference is to sew the binding strip to the front, flip it over the edge to the back and then stitch-in-the-ditch on the front so that the thread just catches the binding on the back (so the binding on the back is 3/8” wide).
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_6.jpg[/IMG]
O.k., we need the printed names now. Using an Xacto knife, cut through the center line of the printed letters, following the twists and turns of each letter. Where lines cross over each other, don’t cut all the way through at those intersections so that your paper doesn’t fall apart when you lift it up.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_7.jpg[/IMG]
Lay the printed name stencil on the quilt top now and secure it to the quilt top with scotch tape, keeping in mind the 1.5” margins all around. Using a pencil, trace over the slits in the stencil and onto the quilt top. Use a good amount of pressure to make a visible pattern on the top. Remove the printed name stencil but keep it nearby to use as a reference while doing the name stitching.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_8.jpg[/IMG]
Cut some 3/8” strips of fabric to use for the name stitching. For these two examples, I used about 3-4 strips on each one.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_9.jpg[/IMG]
Start at the end of the first letter and anchor the strip with a backstitch. Then, following the pencil lines, lay the strip across the lines and sew down the middle of the strip. Again, use the printed name stencil to help you get your bearings of where you are and where you’re going.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_10.jpg[/IMG]
After the name is fully sewn, use a small pair of scissors to snip the curved edges of the strips to ease them out, since they will try to curl up through the curves. I like to use a pair of Friskar cutters for this.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_11.jpg[/IMG]
The below pics show the name plate quilts after the names have been sewn. They look good at this point, but will really look better after washing and the edges of the names get a raggedy look.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_12.jpg[/IMG]
Wash the name plate quilts in cool water on a gentle cycle with a color catcher sheet. Tumble dry on low heat. After coming out of the dryer, this is what they look like. DON’T PANIC! A steam iron does wonders! Clip all of those stray threads going everywhere, but don’t clip off that beautiful raggedy edge of the lettering. You just want to remove all the raveled threads.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_13.jpg[/IMG]
Turn the piece over and steam press from the back side. Then turn over and press around the edge to flatten out the piece again. You can then hand fluff the raggedy edges of the lettering back up.
And here’s pics of the finished name plate quilts. Enjoy!
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_14.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_15.jpg[/IMG]
http://www.quiltingboard.com/posts/list/23965.page
It’s one that I made for my wife to hang in her school classroom. Here’s a pic of it:
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/Name_1.jpg[/IMG]
In the following tutorial, I’ll show detailed steps of how I made ones for each of my daughters, Meagan and Olivia. So these can be made for teachers, your kids, friends, etc. Or even yourself!
So, let’s get started…
I made the field of the quilt using charm packs, which are coordinated collections of fabric in 5” squares. Using 1/4” seams, the finished height of the banner is 9.5”. But you could make the squares from fat quarters, scraps, or whatever, it’s just convenient to use the charm packs. I think it’s important, however, to use fabrics with dark colors if doing a light script on them so that it shows up well. Conversely, you could use light colored squares with a dark script, etc. The possibilities are endless!
Since the finished size of the panel is 9.5” tall and will have a 1/4” binding on it, the inner field of the quilt will be 9” tall. I wanted to have about a 1.5” margin on both the top and bottom to separate the script from the binding, so that means the capital letters of the name needed to be about 6” tall.
I used Microsoft Word to layout the design of the name for each panel. I began by changing the following settings:
* Set the page layout orientation to Landscape instead of the default Portrait
* Set the Margins to 0.25” on both the top and bottom
* Set the Font Type to “Edwardian Script”
* Set the Font Size to 650.
The Font Size of 650 creates a height of about 6” for the capital letters when using the Edwardian Scripts font. Here’s how the text looked on my computer screen at this stage:
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_0.jpg[/IMG]
The “g” in “Meagan” runs off the bottom of the page, but that’s o.k., we’ll freehand that later. Also, I didn’t want that curlyque thing to the upper left of the “M”, so I just didn’t include it in mine.
Next is to go ahead and print out the pages. After printing, tape them together to form the complete name. I found it helpful to use my lined cutting map as a guide for the bottom of the pages to keep them square with each other when taping.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_1.jpg[/IMG]
The next step is to determine how wide your name plate quilt should be. Since we have a 1.5” margin on the top and bottom, we need that on each side as well. So measure how wide your printed name is and then add 3” to the result. Divide the result by 4.5” (the width of a finished charm block) to see how close you are to what you need. I was lucky with Meagan’s name plate in that it came out exactly to what I needed. Her printed name measured 24” wide, so I needed a quilt top that was 27” wide. Six charm squares times 4.5” finished size each equals exactly 27” – hurray! However, with Olivia’s, her printed name was 17”, so I needed a quilt that was 20” wide (again, 1.5” margin on each side). The finished charm square of 4.5” times 5 comes up to 22.5”, though. So I had to trim 0.5” off one side of each charm square for hers, to the finished size of hers were 4.5” tall by 4” wide. The altered 4” width times 5 squares gave me the 20” width that I needed.
All of the above is just to say that you may need to alter the width of your charm squares to come up with the right width of the finished quilt.
After I had the number of squares I needed, I laid them out to get a pleasing pattern, and then laid the printed names over each to get a quick visual of how it will look. Go ahead and set the printed names aside for now, it’ll be a while before we need them again.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_2.jpg[/IMG]
The below pic shows how the squares have all been sewn together now using a 1/4” seam allowance. I sewed each top square to the bottom square and then joined each column together. After sewing, press all seams with an iron.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_3.jpg[/IMG]
Next, we need to create the quilt sandwich of backing material, batting, and the top. The pic below shows the 3 layers which are safety-pinned together and ready for quilting.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_4.jpg[/IMG]
I used simple stitch-in-the-ditch quilting on the panels, and the pic below shows the quilted panels. They have both been trimmed to size now as well.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_5.jpg[/IMG]
I next added the binding for each panel. The binding is 1/4” wide so I used strips of fabric that are 2” wide, folded over like bias tape with wrong sides together so the binding strip is 1” wide. There are many examples in quilt books on how to do this, so I’m not going to go into it here. Suffice it to say, just do a 1/4” binding in your own preferred method. My preference is to sew the binding strip to the front, flip it over the edge to the back and then stitch-in-the-ditch on the front so that the thread just catches the binding on the back (so the binding on the back is 3/8” wide).
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_6.jpg[/IMG]
O.k., we need the printed names now. Using an Xacto knife, cut through the center line of the printed letters, following the twists and turns of each letter. Where lines cross over each other, don’t cut all the way through at those intersections so that your paper doesn’t fall apart when you lift it up.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_7.jpg[/IMG]
Lay the printed name stencil on the quilt top now and secure it to the quilt top with scotch tape, keeping in mind the 1.5” margins all around. Using a pencil, trace over the slits in the stencil and onto the quilt top. Use a good amount of pressure to make a visible pattern on the top. Remove the printed name stencil but keep it nearby to use as a reference while doing the name stitching.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_8.jpg[/IMG]
Cut some 3/8” strips of fabric to use for the name stitching. For these two examples, I used about 3-4 strips on each one.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_9.jpg[/IMG]
Start at the end of the first letter and anchor the strip with a backstitch. Then, following the pencil lines, lay the strip across the lines and sew down the middle of the strip. Again, use the printed name stencil to help you get your bearings of where you are and where you’re going.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_10.jpg[/IMG]
After the name is fully sewn, use a small pair of scissors to snip the curved edges of the strips to ease them out, since they will try to curl up through the curves. I like to use a pair of Friskar cutters for this.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_11.jpg[/IMG]
The below pics show the name plate quilts after the names have been sewn. They look good at this point, but will really look better after washing and the edges of the names get a raggedy look.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_12.jpg[/IMG]
Wash the name plate quilts in cool water on a gentle cycle with a color catcher sheet. Tumble dry on low heat. After coming out of the dryer, this is what they look like. DON’T PANIC! A steam iron does wonders! Clip all of those stray threads going everywhere, but don’t clip off that beautiful raggedy edge of the lettering. You just want to remove all the raveled threads.
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_13.jpg[/IMG]
Turn the piece over and steam press from the back side. Then turn over and press around the edge to flatten out the piece again. You can then hand fluff the raggedy edges of the lettering back up.
And here’s pics of the finished name plate quilts. Enjoy!
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_14.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b45/E-G-L/NPQ_15.jpg[/IMG]
08-15-2009, 02:43 PM
#2
Super Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Central Illinois
Posts: 2,329
Wow! I admired your original. Thank you so much for posting such detailed directions. I've bookmarked this for future use. These would be great shower gifts for a new baby, etc. Thanks for taking the time to let us all in on your technique.
08-15-2009, 09:38 PM
#9
Super Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Michigan
Posts: 2,146
Thanx for your generosity. I was going to ask how you did it but didn't want to impose on this beautiful gift you mad for your wife. I guess we all loved it :lol: My mom is a secretary at an elementary school and I will be making one for her. Thanx agakn Eddie, It is beautiful!! :lol:
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