hudgoddess

First-RELAX-this is very easy and forgiving!

You can choose any type of cotton for fabric, I've used flannel and quilting cotton. And you can do combinations! This is a great way to blast through your stash. The color tone will come through, but patterns and textures will be lost, so use your 'ugly' fabrics for the slashed layers! I used 3 colors of solid flannel in the photo quilt, and I'll give instructions based on doing this quilt.

For this quilt, I used 6 layers of flannel, 42" square. Very pale purple for the top and bottom layers, 4 layers of pink for the middle and one layer of red for the heart.

Lay out the red, fold in half. Lay out one pink, fold in half and lay on top of the red-folded edges together. Smooth it all out so the edges are as even as possible. Free hand a half heart with a chalk marker (or whatever marker you like) and cut both pieces together freehand with a rotary cutter. (or scissors if you prefer) Open both fabrics. Put aside the pink heart shape and the red outline shape for scrap. The red heart will nestle perfectly inside the pink outline shape!

Lay the bottom light purple layer face down on the table or floor where it can be laid out totally flat and smooth. Next, one layer of pink, face up. Smooth out so edges are lined up as closely as possible. Lay the pink heart outline first, smoothing from the edge to the inside, then lay the red heart inside that. Now smooth the heart and outline pieces so they lay as close as possible without overlapping. Throw the next two layers of pink on, then top with the light purple, smoothing everything out with each layer added. With this size, you'll want to pin baste. With the flannel, I pinned about every 6-8 inches. I might go closer with cotton.

Draw a diagonal line with your marker on the top layer. I don't trust my ability to keep it straight, so I marked mine every half inch all the way across. You absolutely MUST stitch on the bias. This is not the time to be creative and use a different angle-it won't fluff out right.
USE YOUR WALKING FOOT!!! Stitch on the lines all the way across the quilt, starting with the middle line. Stitch up one line and down the next-that helps keeps things from shifting a bit. Smooth the fabric packet as you go, unpin and smooth bubbles out as you go if the shift is bigger than can be worked in without a bubble.
I wanted a firm backing on mine, so I slashed through the top four layers, leaving the two bottom layers uncut. If you have electric scissors stashed somewhere, now is the time to dig them out! Also, there's several brands of slash cutters in your LQS-well worth the money if you plan on doing more than one of these! I clipped a half inch in from the edge with scissors to start the cut, then used my new slash cutter to clip between every line of stitching.
Square up the quilt-you WILL have some shifting-so you have nice clean 6 layers edges all around. Cut your binding strip generously-you've got a thick layer to wrap around! I do regular binding at 2 1/4", but went 3" for this! Attach binding by your favorite method. I hand stitched mine to the back because it was just too thick for my walking foot to go over-maybe if it was only 4 layers.....
Now it's magic time! Throw that puppy in the washer and then tumble it dry. The more you wash and dry it, the fluffier it gets!

Now, think of the possibilities here. If a heart was that easy, how about a Santa? Bunny? Snowman? Flag? Teddy bear? You can put as many colors into the design layer as you want. But make your pieces big enough so they'll be caught in a couple of rows of stitching, so at least an inch. For a more pronounced design, use 2 layers of design and less layers of fill color.
For a blanket use fewer layers, this one is really heavy!
For a rug, use a non-skid rug backing for the bottom layer. Find it at WalMart.

This is my first tutorial-let me know how you like it. Was it clear and complete?