Technique Tuesdays with Debby Kratovil: East Meets West

Debby Kratovil is here today, working with the Sakura collection by Greta Lynn for Kanvas, and making perfect circles!

Beautiful fabrics from the Sakura collection from Kanvas

What did these fabrics say to you, Debby?

Butterflies remind me of Spring. Are you coming, Spring?

I wanted to make something simple, letting the fabric take the stage. Simple shapes: circles and squares. Did I say that circles are simple? Easy? Of course. Let me show you how!

Isolate a butterfly. Cut out a circle of freezer paper.

I drafted a 6" circle and printed it. Then I traced it onto freezer paper. I will center it on my butterfly.

Captured all of the butterfly within the circle

Now I iron the freezer paper circle to the WRONG side of the butterfly. It will be my sewing guide.

Cut a piece of medium weight interfacing larger than the circle

Now for the fun part!

Sew along the EDGE of the freezer paper circle (I've already peeled the circle off)

 Now we trim, leaving 1/8" - 1/4" seam allowance.

Trim!

OK. Now you're confused, right? It's like I painted myself into a corner. How do I get out?

Clip into the interfacing and turn the butterfly circle right side out. Press well (but not on the interfacing side)

OK. How does it look from the front?

Butterfly auditioning for a background fabric

Chose this due to the irregular etched lines.

Butterfly pinned and ready for stitching

What color thread did I use? Black, but I also found that finer-than-usual thread disappears into the fabric much better. I changed my thread after the first circle was stitched. I also used black in the bobbin. Why? Because sometimes the bobbin thread "beads" up to the top and I didn't want little specks of white or cream to show on the front.

Now it's time to clip away background fabric and interfacing

Notice that I used a narrow, short machine zigzag stitch.

Now it's time for my alternate block for the 5 butterfly blocks.

Make simple 4 Patch blocks

 And how does the quilt look?

Sakura Butterfly Quilt

10" blocks. 42" x 42" quilt. I will quilt it with my friend Jeannine's walking foot along the straight lines. Then I'll free motion quilt each block individually.

Thanks, Debby, for the great tutorial! 
To enter to win some Sakura fat quarters, make sure you are a follower of our blog (you can sign up to follow by email or through a blog reader in the right hand sidebar) and then head over to Debby's blog and leave a comment on her Sakura post, letting her know you're following, and if you've ever made circles for a quilt before. The giveaway will remain open through Friday, March 14th at 11:59 pm EST.