Monthly Mini • April 2026 • Theresa | Lisa Bongean | Primitive Gatherings

Hey everyone, it's Lisa from Primitive Gatherings, and today we are going to teach you all about Teresa, which is one of our quilts in our mini quilt series. So this is a quilt that I named after my mother, and we have one more quilt in this series to go, but this one, I'll give you a quick little good look at it, is pretty much all wool applique. So my mother loved her peony garden, and she also loved watching the hummingbirds twiddle around her yard, so that's why I did the hummingbird, and then all of these are supposed to be peonies, right? They are all wool applique. This is wool, and then this background is flannel. So that's what we are going to talk about today. So if you get a kit from us, these are the fabrics that you're gonna get. We have this basket weave type of flannel that will be in your kit, and we have, I wouldn't say we had a ton of kits, so if you really love this one and you like these colors, grab yourself a kit right away because they're not gonna last very long. And then I've just got some of my scraps left over from when I made it, and then our background that everything goes on is also wool. So I'm parking that there for now, and then I'll talk a little bit about maybe if you've never done wool applique, what are the different things you're gonna encounter with this project. So here's our pattern, and inside our pattern, we have our layout sheets. You would trim that there and then tape these two together, and I'm not gonna do that because I have mine from when I did it, so I'm just gonna use the one half that I have, and then here is our tracing sheets here. So in this one, I believe it has five different flowers, and one of them is cranberry colored wool, that's that dark red, and then all of the other ones you're gonna trace here with this, all right? And then this one up top here is the green. That's not big enough because I just grabbed a scrap to show you how to do the stems. So this is the tracing sheet. Don't trace from the layout, all right? So then we use fusible web here at Primitive Gatherings. So what I have done is I've traced the outer scallop here onto my fusible web, and I like the Heat N Bond Featherlite, and I'm gonna show you how it works here. So this is it. I trace and then I trim really super close, you know, maybe about an eighth inch away. You never trim on the line on fusible web. And then I'm gonna try something that I never thought about doing before. So we're gonna test something here today. So what I did was, one of the things we have to do is we have to draw our lines on here or use a light box to get these stems underneath the flowers. So I thought, what about if I trace those stems right on my fusible web, and then when it's on the wool, I can put that right on the light box and just trace on top of the wool where those stems go. So let's see if that works, all right? Okay, so then I have already traced. I got my background, and then I traced one set of flowers here for us, and I'm gonna quickly trim those out. So I'm just gonna go right on the outside of each one, and you're gonna do this for however many colors of flowers. I think there's five. You're gonna find your wool, and you're just gonna place it near the edge there. And then this green, I have a scrap to show you how to cut the stems. So the stems are out of Steam-A-Seam 2 Light. So this has like a tackiness to it, and this helps me bend them, and they stay bent when I put them onto the background. If I use the Heat N Bond Featherlight, they wouldn't do that. I'd have to like run it with the iron that way to get that. So I'm just gonna place this onto my wool. Now, some of your wools, if you get a kit from us, are gonna be different on each side. So the side that you like the best, you put the fusible on the opposite side. Okay, so now I'm gonna slide over to my iron over here, and show you. I don't wanna do too much on my mat here because I don't wanna warp it. Ask me how I did that once already. All right, so I'm just gonna place this onto my background. Now, with this fusible web, you do not need steam on paper when I'm doing this. But when we put the wools onto the background, then we need steam to make sure that adheres nicely. So I'm just gonna make sure I get it nice and fused down. I kinda always keep the iron moving. I don't wanna scorch my wool. And you can't overheat this. So it's best to just make sure it's down really, really nice. All right, so now that I have that, I would cut this out right here on the drawn line. Like that, okay? But I'm not gonna waste a bunch of time doing that for you. You kinda understand how that's gonna work. All right, so that's prepped and ready to go. Now I'll prep this one right here. I'll hit that one down. Remember, no steam, just hot, hot iron. And then we'd cut all of those out. And then this one is for the stems or vines, whatever we wanna call them. Okay, so then I have this really cool ruler for cutting stems. Now I need eight stems at two and a half inches. So we just have this long piece of wool here. So I'm just gonna cut. And then I'm going to put it on four and then I'm gonna cut this in half. So this ruler is just for cutting stems that are three sixteenths inch. So why three sixteenths? Because if I cut a quarter of an inch, by the time I stitch them, they're gonna look way bigger than that. So I cut them three sixteenths. When I stitch them, then they look a quarter of an inch. So that is why I do it that way. So then I'm gonna cut one, slide over. Oh, that was slid over two, okay. All right, I might've cut an extra stem, but that's okay. You can always use it for something, right? There, and then I'm just gonna cut it in half. And I'm just gonna eyeball it, cause that'll work. And then I can get some of this off that doesn't have any on and then there I have my eight stems just like that. All right, so now this is what I'm talking about, about how to get your stems on here. And then I have another way to show you in case you don't have a light box. So I'm gonna slide my beautiful new light box toward me and we might have to adjust a little bit lighting here. We'll see once. So once this is cut out, it's all cut out, look it, when I put it on here, I can see every one of my lines where my stems go. So now all I have to do is pick this up and place it on and bend it around. And they're a little big, so I can trim them off a little bit. I was probably slid my scissors over here. They're gonna go under the flowers. And I just drew what shows on the pattern. So make them just a little bit bigger than that. How's Kaylee, can you see those lines through the thing or not really? Okay, good, perfect. So then, like I said, give them a little trim and you're gonna just put those down that way all the way around. You're gonna cut out your flowers and then you can put the flowers in the leaves on there. Just getting the stems is the hardest part. And that's why I wanted to take a time to show you how you get that easily enough. All right, so then here's another thing. Ooh, whoa, look, I didn't know that went so bright. Super cool, I got a brand new one. That's why it's a little different than my other one. Okay, so let's talk about if you don't have a light box, how are you gonna get those stems drawn on your wool? What I did was I cut out the pattern. So this right here is where the stems are. So I will just lay my stems here, here, here. I'll place that onto my fabric like so. And then you would just place them around it that way. So I'm kind of giving you a couple different options on how to lay those on. You can just draw a line or you can place the stems around there like that, okay? So those are kind of a couple of things that are a little different than a lot of the other wool projects that we do. But I wanna talk a couple minutes on a couple of the other things that's going on here. All right, so once you have this all fused down, you're gonna fuse this background onto our flannel that fell over there onto the floor when I was pushing some things around. So you're gonna take the paper off the back of this when you have those all fused down, and then you're going to steam this out, the wrinkles out of this, and then you're gonna place that on there. So it'll look like this then, not quilted, obviously. So then you're gonna do blanket stitch around the flowers, and we put a little diagram in there for the blanket stitch because you're gonna go where the little indents are, you're gonna do a long blanket stitch, and then a short one in the curve, and then a long one, a short one, a long one. And you do the bottom one first, then you do the top, and then you put a colonial knot in the middle of each flower. And we've listed all of the threads that you need for each color of these wools. And then when it was all done, I did this really fancy stitching. This is a fly stitch, and then this, again, is the colonial knot. This is a variegated thread, so it's only one thread, it kinda has almost all the colors in those peonies, so that worked really well. And then after it came back from the quilter, who is Sherry Sweeney, it's one of our girls who works here at the shop. She did a fabulous job on this, and you know we had a little funny thing happen with this. These lines right here, she had marked it in like she was gonna quilt them, and then the blue marking pen never came out, it turned like a really cruddy brown color. So I just stem stitched these curved lines over her brown lines that didn't go away, and I think it turned out pretty good. And I had to add those four extra flowers. So if you didn't wanna add those four extra flowers and did it like it is on the pattern, but we did add these in for you if you wanna make those. And then after you're done stitching, it goes to the quilter, and then it comes back, and then I put the binding on. All right, so the other half of your 2 3rds yards will be used to cut binding. And depending on which way you cut it, I told you to cut like 90 inches of binding to go all the way around. And then you put your binding on just like a quilt, and then I did this fancy stem stitch right in the corner where the binding is attached with that same variegated thread. Just, you know, maybe just to show off a little bit, that's why I did it. You don't have to do that by any means, but if you love to stitch and do embroider stitches, it just gives it a little bit extra fun touch. And sometimes those little extra touches might win you a ribbon at the quilt show, and they do have miniature quilt categories. So I'm just saying that just might happen if you are brave enough to put your quilt in the show. But really quilt shows are very fun. I still remember the first time I ever seen a quilt show, and it was amazing. I walked through that place with my mouth hanging open because I never knew this even existed. All right, so that's all I have for you today. A couple tips on how to work with the wool applique because most of the quilts that we have done so far for the minis have not been wool. But like I said, I needed to honor my mom with her peonies and her hummingbirds. So we have Teresa all in wool. And then next month we will have cousin Mary, and she will conclude our series of these 12 minis. All right, all for now. And we'll catch you next month.