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Madonna and Child Wall Quilt

This small quilt is charming and quick to make. It can be a great gift for any occasion, but especially for Christmas. The quilt features the design Madonna and Child by William Dyce.

The finished size of the quilt is about 16" x 19 1/2".

Besides embroidery threads, you will need

light-colored cotton fabric for the embroidery, a piece large enough to be properly hooped;
light-colored polyester craft felt, used as embroidery stabilizer and batting;
1/2 yard of light-blue cotton fabric, for borders, backing and binding;
1 fat quarter of blue fabric;
scraps of navy blue fabric for the stars;
a sheet of tracing paper and a pencil;
disappearing fabric marker, or chalk

We recommend to choose your fabric after you make the embroidery. That way you can choose fabric that will exactly match the colors of the embroidery.

Emboridery

Stabilize the light-colored fabric with polyester craft felt.
Select thread in accordance with the color card and make the embroidery.
After it's finished, press with steam.

Sewing the Central Part of the Quilt:

Cover the embroidery with a sheet of tracing paper and mark the oval outline of the embroidery. Inside the oval, draw another oval 1/4" from the line.
Cut out the smaller paper oval.

Trace this oval onto the fabric for the frame and cut it out. You'll have a piece of fabric with an oval opening.

Cut out the embroidery with seam allowance 1/4".
Place the fabric with the oval opening over the embroidery. By hand, turning the raw edge of the oval frame about 1/4" inside, slip-stitch the frame to the embroidery.

Trim the fabric around the embroidery to 10 1/2" x 13 1/2".

Cutting the Borders

Out of light-blue fabric cut

2 strips measuring 3 1/2" x 10 1/2" and 2 strips measuring 3 1/2" x 13 1/2".
a strip measuring 1 1/2" x 24 1/2", subcut it into 16 squares measuring 1 1/2" x 1 1/2".
8 squares measuring 1 7/8" x 1 7/8". Use the remaining fabric for the binding and backing.

Out of scraps of dark blue fafric, cut 4 squares measuring 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" and 8 squares measuring 1 7/8" x 1 7/8".

Sewing the Star Blocks

Position the light blue and dark blue 1 7/8" squares in pairs, face to face. You'll get 8 pairs.

With a pencil, draw a diagonal on the top square. Stitch 1/4" from the pencil line on both sides.

Cut along the line. Open the new squares. Press the seam towards the dark blue. Trim the "ears". Repeat for all the pairs. You should get 16 half square triangles measuring 1 1/2" x 1 1/2".

Take the 16 light blue and 4 dark blue solid squares and arrange them in four 3x3 blocks: the dark square goes in the middle and light-blue squares go in the corners. Position the half-triangles so that they form a "star" pattern. See the diagram below.

Sew the squares into rows, then sew the rows together. You will get 4 blocks, each measuring 3 1/2" x 3 1/2".

Sewing the Borders.

Sew the 3 1/2" x 13 1/2" light-blue strips to the right and left edges of the central piece.

Sew the blocks to the ends of the 3 1/2" x 10 1/2" strips.

Sew these strips to the upper and lower edges of the quilt.

Quilting and Finishing

Spread the backing on your table, face down. Cover the backing with batting. Cover with the working piece. Pin all three layers together with 1" pins.

We quilted around the embroidery and all over the quilt in a free-motion style. Feathers look very good on this quilt.

Press the work with heavy steam and square the work -- all corners should be 90 degrees and opposite sides should be of the same length. Finish the raw edges with binding