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Quilting: How to Make a Disney Christmas Quilt

Step-by-step instructions to make a stippled Disney character quilt

Create a festive Disney character quilt with your Brother Dream Machine. Learn to stipple around designs, use traditional free-motion stitching, or skip the stitching altogether. Let the celebrations begin with this perfect holiday keepsake.

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Festive Disney-Inspired Quilt

Use your Brother machine and our quilting and stippling tips to create a Disney Christmas quilt.

What You'll Need
Brother Aveneer EV1
Brother SA446C Large Quilt Embroidery Frame 8" X 8"
Brother SA125 ¼" Quilting Foot
Brother SA140 Walking Foot or Brother SA195 MuVit Open-Toe Dual-Feed Foot
Fabric—white muslin or quilting cotton (background), green gingham for side triangles, 2 yds. 45" wide red gingham for backing, red, green, yellow, Christmas print scraps for border
Very lightweight cotton batting
Heat erasable marking pen
Basting spray
Rotary cutter
Mat
Ruler

Finished size 67" L x 40" wide

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The fun 4" × 4" designs are available at ibroidery.com.

Disney Holiday designs to be stippled in white:
DMCRT01 Santa Mickey
DMCRT02 Santa Minnie
DMCRT03 Pluto for Christmas
DMCRT04 Goofy Santa with presents
DMCRT05 Holiday Fun
200811098 Minnie with Pluto
211914011 M&M building snowman

Small designs to be stippled in green:
200910425 Candle
200910426 Candy cane
200910427 Mittens
231020029 Bell
200910433 Star
200910424 Gingerbread boy ornament
200910431 Star snowflake
200910432 Stocking

Small designs to be stippled in red:
200910471 Reindeer
200810113 Wreath
231020044 Teddy bear
200910470 Ornament (one extracted from two ornaments)
231020027 Christmas tree
200910430 Present

OTHER SOURCE
Brother Christmas Card #28
design Bcd28017 Santa (to be stippled in red)
design Bcd28011 Poinsettia and ribbons extracted from this design (to be stippled in red)

NOTE: Snowmen and Santas with white features were avoided around the design perimeter because white embroidery can disappear against a white background. A dark outline helps define these details, as shown by the disappearing star in Row 7.

Preparation

1. Cut 23 squares, each 13" x 15" from the white background fabric. Starch and press.
2. Cut 23 squares, each 13" x 15" from the very thinnest cotton batting.
3. Cut 16 squares, each 7 ¼" from the green gingham fabric. Starch, press and set aside.
4. Assemble a laundry basket with red, green, yellow and Christmas fabric scraps larger than 3" on one side. Set aside larger pieces for the scrappy binding.
5. Set embroidery foot height to .040". Make this change on pg. 7 of the info sheet, the lined page icon at the top of your screen.

Embroidery & Stippling
Step 1

Hoop a 13" x 15" rectangle of batting and background fabric with no stabilizer in an 8" x 8" frame.

Step 2

Select Christmas DMCRT05, the Holiday Fun design.

Step 3

Go to Edit menu and click size. Rotate 45 °.

Step 4

Edit to include basting frame as far away from design as allowed.

Note: Black thread was chosen for basting frame for photo visibility. White thread or thread the colour of the background fabric is a better choice as no remaining fibres will show when the basting stitches are removed.

Step 5

Embroider design.

Step 6

Remove basting stitches

My Design Center

Note: Remember that on most screens in MDC, the black arrow at the bottom of the screen will take you back to the previous screen. Open My Design Center.

Step 7

Scan design.

Tip: Make sure the needle is unthreaded before scanning or else it may leave a thread dragging across the embroidered design during the scan which will show up and cause considerable aggravation. If that happens, it’s best to remove the thread and rescan.

Step 8

Select the illustration key which turns the design on the screen into embroidery, even if you have already stitched the design – this is step #1 of an easy way to add stippling to an embroidered design.

Step 9

Frame (crop) the image with the corner handles. Press OK and "wait a while" as instructed.

Step 10

Press OK again then Set.

Step 11

Enlarge the view as much as 400% for better visibility of shadows. At 200-400% you will see stray shadow stitches that are not visible at 100%. They will haunt you when the stipple pattern detours around them.

Step 12

Engage the eraser key circled in orange to clean up the image. NOTE: Because the batting adds loft, the scan picks up shadows and reads them as stitches. The "shadow stitches" must be erased.

Several options will appear. Choose the larger erasers for larger areas, smaller for small areas. NOTE: Use of the magnification option makes it easier to erase more accurately.

Step 13

Use your stylus to remove unwanted portions of the scan. Remember that you have the black BACK arrow if your erasing goes too far and you erase a part of the original embroidery.

Step 14

Lift the stylus frequently. Doing so sets the previous erasures. The BACK arrow will go back to the place where you last lifted the stylus.

Note: You may also switch to different erasers.

Step 15

Notice the sliding scale at the bottom left of the screen. This allows you to brighten or darken images for better visibility.

Step 16

Return the magnification to 100%.

Step 17

Select the region key circled in orange. The next screen offers options.

Step 18

Select the options in blue because the block will be square. Press OK.

Step 19

Click on the size button.

Step 20

Resize the design to 6.90. Press OK.

Step 21

Select the Line Property key in the black box below. Another screen will appear.

NOTE: The red box was added for clarity. The line on the screen is a single black line, which only identifies the area to which you want to add stippling. This creates a light grey box around the area to be stippled. Since you don’t want that box to be stitched...

Step 22

…select the no-sew box option boxed in red. Press OK.

Step 23

Select the bucket tool key, circled in yellow.

Step 24

Apply that function by touching the perimeter of the box with your stylus. That line becomes a broken grey line which will not be stitched.

Step 25

Select the region key in the purple box to create the stipple region. When this screen comes up select the highlighted icons. Press OK.

Step 26

Select the stipple function in the purple box on the next screen.

Step 27

Select a colour for the stipple stitches. This does not have to be the actual colour you will use. It needs to be one which provides good contrast. You can see that grey, in the green box, has been chosen. Press OK. TIP: Don’t choose a colour that’s in the design, especially not the last colour. When the stippling was applied to the Goofy design and it was time to embroider, the grey just happened to be the last colour in that design. Since there was no colour stop between the grey stippling and the grey which was the last colour in Goofy, it was necessary to scroll through the grey Goofy colour to get to the stippling. Much easier to use a strongly contrasting colour.

NOTE: A lot of grey shadows appear within the design and were read as stitches. Removal and erasure of these was unnecessary because they were in the area where stippling was not applied. Only stitches outside the perimeter of the embroidery were removed.

Step 28

Select the stipple fill key (pitcher).

Step 29

Touch next screen with stylus to insert stippling.

Note: The stippling disregards the embroidery design. That will be remedied in upcoming steps.

Step 30

Select PREVIEW at the bottom of the page. It will inform you that the image will not be saved as you leave My Design Center for embroidery. Click OK to continue.

Step 31

Chose the run pitch (stitch length) and spacing of the stippling. Leave the defaults or make other selections. Because the designs are relatively small compared to the size of the block, a shorter stitch length and closer spacing were chosen here, as shown in the orange boxes. Make your selection and press OK. Then "Please wait a while," while the information loads.

Step 32

See that the stipple pattern surrounds the design but does not stitch over it. Tap SET.

ALERT!!! Before you tap SET, note the size in the upper corner. It should read 6.80" x 6.80". If you forget to hit OK when you resize it, the design will be stitched in the wrong size. You may need to go back to Scan.

A message will appear saying, "Converted to the embroidery pattern, and My Design Center will be exited. OK to continue to embroidery edit screen?" Sure, press OK.

Note: Are you concerned that the Holiday Fun design you have already embroidered is included in this design? Worry not. We’ll just scroll through all colours except the stippling stitched. Tap on Embroidery at the bottom of the screen, because at last the time has come to embroider.

Note: The large Disney designs were stippled with a silvery white thread. The small designs were stippled alternately in gold and green.

Step 33

Now you know how to add stippling to an embroidered design. Repeat this process for the remaining quilt blocks.

Scrap Sashing & Construction

Overview

This illustration/diagram below may not be the best-looking, but it has the essential information you’ll need.

A. The green Xs indicate green gingham. Those 7 ¼" squares will be trimmed into triangles near the end of the quilt top’s construction.

B. The text colour in each embroidered block indicates the colour of the stippling.

C. The rows are constructed first by joining the blocks. To the first and last embroidered block add another scrappy sashing. These blocks already have batting but there is none below the added sashing or the gingham square which will be joined. So before adding the green gingham, join a batting scrap to the existing batting in the row. This will rest beneath the trimmed block.

D. Each row begins with a green gingham block, vertical sashing, embroidered block, vertical sashing, embroidered block, etc. ending with a gingham block. The diagram shows triangles at the end of each row, but you begin with a square and later cut it to the triangular shape.

E. After each row is constructed, the horizontal sashing is joined at the bottom of the row. Three inches of sashing must be joined to each of the gingham squares. Two rows differ from this pattern.

Row #1: The stocking block in row #1 has vertical sashing joined to each side as well as to the top. Make certain that the top sashing extends 3" beyond the embroidered stocking block. Then a 7 ¼" green gingham square is seamed to each of the three sides. Lastly, a row of horizontal sashing is joined to the bottom. Always extend the horizontal scrap sashing 3" inches beyond the block.

Row #7: The snowflake block has sashing joined to each side as well as the bottom. Remember, that sashing must extend 3". Then 3 gingham squares are added, one to each side as well one to the bottom of the block.

Let’s get started.
Step 1

Begin with the 3 x 8" rectangles of foundation fabric. We used scraps from trimming the embroidered blocks and you could use other scraps for these small pieces.