I saw this fabric and knew I had to have it. The fabric line is titled “Coast to Coast” by Michael Mullen for Windham. I bought the panel and 1 yard each of 3 coordinating fabrics.
Having recently moved, I was decorating a spare bedroom, and found myself at Hobby Lobby, picking up some wall decor. I was drawn to some travel poster replicas, and these adorable Volkswagon prints.
As soon as I hung them on the walls, I thought about this panel! What a great wall hanging it would make to complement these pictures! And there you have it… a purpose for this lovely fabric!
I wanted to do 3 types of quilting on this wall hanging – on the panel, straight line quilting with a walking foot and some thread painting, plus some free motion quilting on the borders. So I decided I would use the ‘quilt as you go’ technique for the borders. Stay with me…!
My project started by piecing together leftover strips of a low loft polyester batting. It’s very easy to do; simply lay 2 strips of batting, side-by-side, same side up, and stitch together with a medium size zigzag stitch. This works especially nice with low loft batting. I intentionally created the batting about 10 inches bigger than my panel on all sides. I sprayed 505 Spray and Fix (Temporary Fabric Adhesive), on the back side of the panel, and placed it in the center of the batting. I am not using a fabric backing yet.
Next, I used my walking foot. If you look closely, this panel has a 1/2 inch pre-printed grid. Let me tell you, my walking foot did a lot of walking! With a 12/80 topstitch needle, I used invisible thread on top and Aurifil 50 weight light gold thread on the bottom (in case any bobbin thread showed through). For the walking foot quilting, I reduced the pressure foot pressure, used a 3.0 mm stitch length, and started/stopped off the fabric panel. I alternated stitching each row, top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top, left-to-right and right-to-left, as to not distort the fabric. The key though, is to let the walking foot “walk”. Make sure there is no pushing or pulling on the fabric (no weight). This quilting will not show on the back of my finished wall hanging.
Once straight stitch walking foot quilting was finished, I attached my borders, placing them right sides together with the panel, stitching together with a 1/4 inch stitch. Thus ‘quilt as you go’ for this step of my process.
I wanted to add some more dimension, so I placed another piece of batting, one with a nice high loft between my backing fabric and my newly created quilt top. I changed my needle to a 14/90 Schmetz Stretch needle. Here I did quite a bit of thread painting on the panel, highlighting the fun pictures and around the states. A bit of free motion meandering on the borders, and my quilting was done! You can find my quilting tips here.
I had some nice solid green Kona fabric that worked nicely for the binding. You can find my binding tips here.
What a fantastic quilting project and decorating idea! Love the VW pictures, too!
Yes, the room came together nicely! Thanks!
I love this! I have always wanted some sort of a map of the US to hang, but never thought of doing it this way. It looks great with your VW posters too. I want to do some panels, where do you find them? I only shop for fabric at Joann’s for now, and not huge on shopping online. Joann’s doesn’t really have much for panels.
JoAnn’s has its place for many sewing & quilting things. But you are missing out by not visiting local fabric shops. You’ll find beautiful coordinating fabrics, economical charm packs, and MANY fabric panels. Panels typically cost about $10. I love working with them!