Embroidered Alphabet Mini Quilt

I've been wanting to do an alphabet embroidery for some time. I thought it would be nice to do something simple, where the emphasis is on the letters and the stitching, not any fancy embellishments. The sometimes difficult and time consuming aspect of embroidery is not the stitching of the design, but getting the design onto the fabric. I used freezer paper and my inkjet printer to do it, and it was done in seconds. This alphabet is multicolor, by request, however, I am already imagining one in neutrals as well as a single color. This version reminds me of those magnetic letters so many of us played with on the refrigerator door! I love the look of mini quilts hanging on a wall, so I knew right away I was going to make this into a little quilt.

*edited to add: I don't go into detail about how to make the binding or sew the binding onto the quilt, and I assume that you have knowledge of the basics of quiltmaking. If you have never made a quilt before, don't worry or feeling intimidated by the prospect of learning to make one. Do a search for "how to sew quilt binding," and you will get loads of links, including those for videos. If there is interest, I would be happy to create a step by step tutorial on the basics of putting together a quilt. Just send me a note!

There are so many directions you could take this, I can't wait to see what you make! Here's what you will need to make one like mine:

fabric - I used 100 percent linen
freezer paper
inkjet printer
embroidery floss and needles
lightweight to midweight fusible interfacing
quilt batting
backing fabric
fabric for binding



The first thing you need to do, is fuse some freezer paper to your embroidery fabric. I cut a piece of the freezer paper to the size of standard printer paper - 8.5 inches by 11 inches, and then ironed it to my linen. (Check your freezer paper package for product instructions) I then used my ruler and rotary cutter to cut the linen to the size of the freezer paper. You could use scissors to do this, too. You want to be as precise as possible, so that the linen/paper will go through the inkjet printer.

Click on the image below, and copy and paste the image to your computer. You will then be able to print it onto your fabric. I made it to fit standard printer paper.
Noting which way your printer feeds paper, put the linen into your printer tray and print out the above alphabet onto the fabric. Remember, you want the ink to print onto the FABRIC, not the freezer paper. The freezer paper is used to stabilize the fabric so that it will feed through the printer.

Your fabric should look like this. If you are planning to use very light embroidery floss, or your fabric is very light in color, you may want to select a draft setting on your printing options, so that less ink will be used, resulting in a lighter image on your fabric.

*It might be tempting to use this idea to make something washable, but DON'T! The ink from the printer will bleed and wash away or fade. If you are interested in printing on fabric and making your images permanent and washable, you will either need to pretreat your fabric with a product such as Bubble Jet Set, or purchase inkjet printable fabric.

Now the fun part! Peel away the freezer paper. Keep it; it is reusable! Before you start embroidering, you need to fuse some interfacing to the back of the fabric. The interfacing will stabilize the fabric so that you will not need to use an embroidery hoop. You will be able to stitch without stretching or warping the fabric. Also, the interfacing gives some body and firmness to the finished piece. (You could skip this step and use a hoop, if you prefer)

Embroider the letters using as few or as many colors as you wish. I used all six strands of the embroidery floss so that it would create a chunky stitch. I traced around each letter, using a simple backstitch.

After finishing all the embroidery, the next step is to prepare the piece as if it were a little quilt. Choose your binding fabric and make binding as you would for a quilt, using your preferred method.
I used a plain cotton for the backing and 100 percent cotton batting. Because I did not plan to do any quilting, I then proceeded to baste the layers together, approximately 1/8 inch from the edge. You may decide to do some quilting, at this point, just be aware that machine quilting is probably the way to go because you will be stitching through the interfacing.

a closer look at the embroidery and the basting

If you need to square up the edges, do so now.


Finally, sew on the binding.

Right now I am hanging this from a line, but two more options are to put it in a frame or sew loops to the back, for hanging. This would be great on the wall of a baby's or kid's room. I hope you will make one and let me know what you think. As always, please let me know if you have any questions or problems with the directions. Send me an email or leave a comment, and I will get back to you right away.