Tutorial - 4 Cheeky Ponies

Horsey Mini Wallhanging Tutorial

I love horses, and I often try to make some crafts that incoporates them in to it. I rarely see any horse related crafts in magazines, and then they are usually in brown colours. Whilst I know most horses are brown, it can look a bit boring and bland sometimes. So the other day I was feeling inspired to make a small horsey project, and this is the result. I thought I might have a go at making it a tutorial, as perhaps there might be people out there that like it. Maybe there is a little girl in your life that likes horses, well this would make a perfect gift. I could even imagine it in cute pinks and yellows- yes, even the horses....pink horses! Very cute! And, it's a perfect little project to use up your scraps, and I finished mine in an afternoon.

Finished size: approx. 12"

What you will need:

~ Calico or cream fabric for the background
~ Mustard coloured fabric for the sashing and binding

~ Various scraps of creams, light browns, medium browns, mustards for the horses.

~ Various scraps of 5 different fabrics, in dark reds, blue, and yellow/mustards for the border.

~ Matching threads for applique

~ Vliesofix/freezer paper

~ Backing fabric

~ Batting

~ Iron

~ General sewing supplies.

1/4" seams are used throughout.

From the calico background fabric, cut out four 4.5" squares. Put them aside for now whilst you do the applique. Print out the pattern for the applique pieces: http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/7141/blogpony1ta8.gif. Cut out each piece on the marked lines, then using your vliesofix, trace out enough pieces for each of the 4 ponies, leaving some space around each one.

So you will need 4 faces, 4 bodies, 4 blazes, 4 manes, and a total of 8 ears. Cut out each piece, leaving a space around the marked lines. Choosing a light coloured fabric for the blazes, iron them rough side down onto the wrong side of the fabric. Use a dry iron.

Repeat with all your pattern pieces, ironing them onto the wrong side of your selected scraps of fabric, till you have 4 seperate piles.

Now cut out each piece on the marked line, till you have something that resembles a pony!

Then place each pony onto the square of calico background that you cut out earlier, and iron in place.

Since it's a small wallhanging, I simply appliqued around the ponies using a straight stitch on my machine in matching thread colours. You could applique it by hand, or use a blanket stitch on your machine. It's up to you. Stitch around all the pieces, till all 4 ponies are done. Lay out the blocks in the order you want them.

Cut two 4.5 x 1" strips from the mustard sashing fabric. Using a 1/4" seam, sew the strip (wrong sides together) to the right hand side of the top left hand corner pony block.

Repeat with the other strip for the bottom left hand corner pony. Press seams flat with an iron, then sew the other pony block to the strip, and repeat again for the other pony. Press seams flat.

Cut three 9 x 1" strips from the mustard coloured sashing fabric. Take one strip and sew it to the top side of the bottom pony block. Press seam flat, then sew the top pony block to the strip. Press flat.

Sew one 9 x 1" strip to the right side of the block, and the other strip to the left side, and press seams flat. Cut two 10 x 1" strips from the sashing fabric, and sew these to the top and bottom of the block, and press flat. You should have something like this:

From the various scraps for the border, cut five 1.5 x 12" strips from each fabric. Sew these strips together, alternating colours, and then press flat.

Then cut 1.5" strips from this.

Sew the strips together and press the seams flat. Then sew the strip onto one side of your quilt, trim to the right length, and press seam, and repeat for the other side. Then repeat again for the top and bottom.

And your quilt should look like this:

Now, using french knots, stitch two eyes on each pony, and using backstitch, stitch two nostrils.

From the wadding and backing fabric, cut out a square each that measures slightly larger than the quilt top. For a larger quilt I would normally baste these three layers together, but seeing as it's a small quilt, I pinned the three layers together with pins. Once you have pinned the three layers together, then quilt it using matching coloured thread. I just quilted in the 'ditch' around each of the four calico blocks, and then the sashing strips.

Once you have finished the quilting, trim the batting and backing fabric to the size of the quilt top. From the mustard coloured sashing fabric, cut a long 2" strip. Iron it in half lenghways, wrong side of fabrics together. Lay this strip on your quilt top, with the raw edges matching, and stitch around it, mitering the corners as you go.

When you have gone around the whole quilt, fold the start of your binding strip back on itself (as shown below), then continue stitching the binding till you pass your first point.

Fold the binding over to the back of the quilt, and with matching thread, slip stitch in place. From any left over binding, create two hanging loops and stitch to the back of the quilt.

And, then you're done! The finished result, hanging in my sewing room.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me for help. I would love to have some feedback, so please comment, and share some photos if you make one. :)

This pattern can be easily adapted. Two years ago I made a larger version of this, with each pony fitting into a 12" block.