Mini Meadow tutorial - Cuckoo flower

Dawn Snowgoose
May 4
3 min read

This months mini-meadow kit includes materials and fusible bondaweb to machine appliqué one of the earliest spring flowers - Cuckoo flower.

This pretty pollinator friendly plant, provides nectar for Orange Tips as they emerge. So our free kit includes materials to appliqué an Orange Tip too! The kits are available free for orders of £40 and over 🤗

To make the appliqué, you'll need the following:

The Meadow Mini-kit

Contents - template; cotton prints in pale pink, mauve, white, orange and green; bondaweb; baking parchment; yarn for stems.

Equipment - Pencil, Sharp scissors, Iron and pressing mat, Sewing machine, Pins and needles, Chacopen marker

Notions - Thread in assorted colours (green, taupe, grey, black, orange, lilac); stabiliser or lightweight interfacing.

Low volume background fabric.

If making the mini-quilt, you'll need a piece measuring 10" x 18" - this can be pieced from left overs. In the photos a mixture of Grunge (Winter White), and assorted Janet Clare prints were improv pieced.

Improv pieced background made from low volume left overs.

Please read instructions and let's step into our appliqué meadow 🤗

Step by step tutorial

Trace the template onto the smooth side of bondaweb,
Leave a small gap between each flower, bud, butterfly and wing tips.

Tracing the template onto the smooth side of bondaweb.

Cut out, leaving a narrow border round each bondaweb motif.

Place the bondaweb butterfly on the white fabric, making sure to place it rough side down on wrong side of white fabric.
Place baking parchment on top of bondaweb motif, as a precaution, to protect the iron.
Using a hot iron, press for a few seconds at a time, till the bondaweb is firmly bonded to the fabric
Repeat for the bondaweb wing tips, placing them on the wrong side of the orange fabric, again rough side (fusible glue side) down.

Following the traced outline as a guide, cut out the butterfly and wing tips.

Repeat for the flowers and pink fabric.
Fussy cut the bondaweb backed foliage fabric
Peel the bondaweb paper backing off.

Position cuckoo flowers, and butterfly on the top half of the background. The foliage in the lower half.

Space is left either side of the cuckoo flowers for the meadow flowers to be sewn into the meadow mini quilt over coming months.

Once the pieces are in position, cover each in turn with baking parchment, and using a hot iron, press to fuse them to the background.

Now you're ready to machine appliqué

For the block shown in the photos, I used a basic machine presser foot (the same one I use when doing any straight line sewing, piecing or general sewing). If you prefer you can also use an open toe foot (feed dogs down), or darning foot, whichever you feel most comfortable with.

Set stitch length to a smaller stitch length between 1.6 to 2 mm. To pivot at corners and tight curves, check your needle is in the down position before lifting the foot to pivot.

For the tiny pieces, flower centres and buds I used an even smaller 1mm stitch in scale with the piece.

So lets’ stitch…

Stitch just inside the edge of each shape (approx. 1/8”). Proceed slowly where you need to be precise – for the stitches near the centre of the cuckoo flower I took my foot of the pedal, and used just the hand control.

Cuckoo Flowers and buds

Machine around the flowers twice or more, don’t worry if the line of stitching is wobbly it will give a sketchy feel to your design.

Fuse the tiny yellow centre in the middle of the flower, and permanently secure using small machine stitch

Orange Tip

Using a soluble marker, such as Chacopen, mark the body in the centre of the butterfly.

Using black thread, and a close zig zag / satin stitch, sew the body.

The stitch width on the upper half of the body is approx 3mm and towards the tail 2mm.

Position the orange tips on the wings, and press to fuse and hold in place.

TIP: Use pins to hold wing tips in position, while pressing one edge of applique to fuse in position, before removing pin and pressing whole wing tip.