Add Appliqué to Match the Fabric

If you love the artwork in your fabric, consider bringing it out and making it the star of your project. That’s exactly what I did here.

I started by scanning a small piece of fabric, trying to focus on the dragonfly motif. I played around with the sizing until I found one I was happy with. If I wanted to get more detailed, I could have scanned or photographed the fabric, then cropped it in a program like Microsoft Word before printing it off. But honestly, sitting on the floor and playing catch with Tinker seemed far more entertaining in the moment—so I went with the quick and simple approach.

Once I had the right scale, I was ready for the next step—turning that little dragonfly motif into an appliqué that could be stitched front and center on the bag.

Next, I picked out the fabrics I wanted to use and traced the dragonfly design onto Steam-A-Seam. After heat pressing it to the fabric, I carefully cut out the shapes and created my appliqué dragonflies. Steam a Seam made it easy to position and reposition the dragonfly exactly where I wanted it on my quilted panel.

Before I could attach my appliqué dragonfly, I needed to build the outside of the bag. I’ll admit—I cheated a little and didn’t fully follow the pattern. Instead, I made my bag just a bit taller and with whole pieces of fabric vs 2 1/2 square patchwork.

For the quilting, I used a quick and easy method: I placed painter’s tape diagonally from one corner to the opposite corner, stitched along the edge, then repeated. My dual feed-dog foot (basically a fancy walking foot) with a guide bar made the process go even faster, but if you don’t have one, no worries—you can simply keep repositioning your tape as you go.

I stopped quilting just before reaching the bottom section—purely a personal preference.

This shortcut method gave me a charming quilted effect without a lot of extra fuss.

Here you can see that I trimmed the bags down to size. I also added the appliqué dragonfly and then had fun free-motion quilting (or thread sketching) to really bring the wings and details to life. That little extra layer of stitching added dimension and made the dragonfly stand out beautifully against the quilted background.

Charlie and Tinker are just saying hi!

And VOILA! Instant baby gift — but I couldn’t let it go empty. Now I’m waiting on my Amazon order to fill it with a few baby goodies. 😉