Pretty Pictures Quilt – free quilt pattern for panel fabrics!

Fabric panels are the bane of my fabric stash! I fall in love with adorable fabric panels, buy them, and then keep them while I search for the perfect quilt pattern.

The Pretty Pictures quilt is your solution to panel fabrics! Stitch together this adorable quilt that mixes easy appliqué and basic piecing to make each adorable picture stand out.

I especially love the hand-drawn art of Cori Dantini that Blend Fabrics puts on fabric. What I really want to do is frame each beautiful picture… so that’s what I did with this free quilt pattern designed especially for panel quilts!

This particular fabric collection is called Sugar and Spice. It’s full of spunky and smart little girls. A couple years ago I made a quilt with her boy collection.

This panel quilt pattern works perfectly with pictures that you can fussy cut into 10 1/2” squares. You’ll need 8 pictures and 8 fat eighths (or fat quarters) of coordinating fabrics to make the frames.

The finished size is approximately 51” x 51”.

Read on for step by step photo instructions to make my Pretty Pictures Quilt…

You will need:

• 8 fabric panel pictures, cut into squares 10 1/2” x 10 1/2”.

• 8” x 10” pieces of 8 coordinating fabrics – fat quarters work great.

• 1 1/2 yards of background fabric

• 1 pkg HeatnBond EZ Print sheets or HeatnBond Lite iron on adhesive for tracing.

• The free Pretty Pictures Applique Templates

Cutting:

1. Fussy cut the picture fabric into 10 1/2” x 10 1/2” squares as mentioned above.

2. Create 64 petal applique pieces from the free templates. As you can see from the photos above, I used 8 HeatnBond EZ Print sheets to quickly print all of my petals.

Tip: Use an ink-jet (not laser) printer and feed the sheets through one at a time. They will stick together if you put them all in the printer at the same time.

There are 8 petals on a sheet and you need 8 petals of each fabric, so you can trim away the extra paper and then fuse the whole sheet to a 8” x 10” rectangle of fabric to make it easier.

Alternative – trace 64 petals on the paper side of regular iron-on fusible web. Fuse 8 petals to each frame fabric print.

3. Cut out the 64 petal pieces and remove the paper. You should have 8 in each coordinating fabric.

4. From the background fabric, cut:

• 8 squares 10 1/2” x 10 1/2”

• 2 border strips 6” x 40 1/2”

• 2 border strips 6” x 51 1/2”

Quilt Assembly:

1. Lay out all of the 10 1/2” squares in a checkerboard pattern. Place a stack of 8 matching petals on each picture square.

2. Arrange the petals on the background blocks to make a frame around each picture square. 2 of the background blocks will have 8 petals, 4 will have 6 petals, and 2 blocks will only have 4 petals on them. The remaining petals will be attached to the border strips, so set them aside for later.

3. Carefully carry each background square to your ironing board.

The petal pieces should overlap at the centers, not the corners. Arrange the petals at the corner first, making them ‘share’ the space and look equally placed. They will naturally overlap a little bit in the center of each square edge. Press to fuse.

4. Stitch the curved edges of the appliqué petals to the background squares. I used a simple straight stitch around each petal, but you could use a blanket appliqué stitch or satin stitch too.

Repeat for each of the background blocks. Then you are ready to sew the blocks together.

5. Sew the blocks into rows using a 1/4” seam allowance. Press the seams toward the picture blocks.

Then sew the rows together.

6. Lay the quilt top on the floor or a large work table. Place the 6” x 40 1/2” border strips along the sides.

Arrange 4 of the remaining petal pieces on each border strip to complete some of the frames.

Pin the petals in place. Take the border pieces to your ironing board and press to fuse them. Stitch the petals in place along the curved edges.

7. Pin and sew the border strips to the quilt top.

Repeat steps 6 and 7 with the 6” x 51 1/2” border strips and the remaining 8 petal pieces. Sew them to the top and bottom edges of the quilt top.

Sandwich, quilt, and bind your new quilt!

I can’t wait to see what fabric panels you use in this pattern! You can find lots of Cori Dantini’s adorable panels on Amazon here. Make sure you tag @sewcanshe on Instagram when you post pictures so I can take a look.

Happy quilting!

xoxo,