Make an Inchie Wall Hanging or a Treasure Box
Want to make something of those little one-inch wonders known as Inchies?
How about an easy
wall hanging or a treasure box?
Artist Nikki Wheeler shows you how.
Materials:
- White cotton fabric
- Batting
- Fabric or acrylic paints
- Thread, white and black
- Sewing machine with free-motion and zigzag capabilities
- Eyelets and eyelet setter
- 16-gage wire
- Dowel or other hanging rod
Directions:
- Prepare two quilt sandwiches using the white fabric and batting. Each piece should be at least 8" x 8", but I like to make mine larger so I can use this prepared fabric for several projects.
- Free motion quilt one piece using white thread, the other using black thread. The quilting pattern should be tight, with less than 1/4" between thread lines. The tighter the quilting, the better the little pieces will hold together when cut.
- Randomly paint each fabric sandwich. Add a slight amount of water to the paint for the black thread piece. Add quite a bit of water to the paint for the white thread piece. This will create fabrics of different values using the same paints. I used both Textile and Lumiere metallic paints by Jacquard.
- When dry cut the fabric into 1/2" strips. Sew 3 strips together with black thread, alternating light and dark. Use 2 dark and 1 light for half the inchies and 1 dark and 2 light for the other half of the inchies. Cut these strips into 1-1/2" squares. Zigzag stitch around each square to close the edges.
- Attach eyelets to each corner of the inchies.
- Form clover shapes out of 16-gage wire. To do this, I first wound the wire around a pencil to form the circles and then flattened the circles into the clover shape. Bring the cut ends into the center. Also, create wire figure eights to attach the end inchies.
- Arrange your inchies in a pleasing layout on a table. Wind the eyelets onto the wire clovers to hold everything together.
- Slide the hanging rod through the wires at the top and enjoy your new wall hanging.
To make the boxes, zigzag stitch five inchies together to form the sides and bottom of the container, then one edge of a sixth inchie to make the top.
For more tips on making and using Inchies, see "Art by the Inchie" by Normajean Brevik in the August/September issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. |
