Spring in Bloom: A Spring-Themed Mandala

Fabrics and Products featured in this post were provided by Michael Miller Fabrics and AccuQuilt as part of my being a Michael Miller Brand Ambassador and AccuQuilts GO! Getter

"Where flowers bloom, so does hope."

-Lady Bird Johnson

Covid-19 has caused a whirlwind of world-wide changes that impact nearly every facet of our lives. To help me cope with this new way of life and thwart off feelings of anxiety, I make time for daily meditation. One of my favorite meditative practices is to create mandala quilts. A mandala is a Sanskrit word for circle, the universe, completeness, wholeness, and self-unity. Mandalas are often characterized by their radial symmetry achieved by rings of repeat shapes, pattern and brilliant color. Examples of mandala designs are found in many cultures and spiritualities around the world: Hindu, Tibetan Buddhism (color sand designs), Native Americans (dream catchers), and Celtic Crosses.

Join me as I share my process for creating a spring-inspired Mandala quilt using the AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutting System. Follow along as I'll include lots of tips, tricks, and inspiration to help you experience the Zen of creating your own Mandala Quilt that will bloom with beauty and brilliance.

Material/Supplies/Tools Used:

• 2.5 yards of Michael Miller Cotton Couture - Plum (Quilt Background and Backing)
• Fat Quarters of Michael Miller Fairy Frost: Aqua, Avacado, Butter, Calypso, Cupcake, Fancy, Flower, Grass, Hyacinth, Mermaid, Orchid, Petal, Soft Pink, Sunny, and Whirlpool.
• 3/4 yard of Michael Miller Fairy Frost Snow (includes extra allowance for binding)
• Pellon Wonder Under Paper Backed Fusible 805 (10 yard bolt, comes 17" wide)
• Low-loft batting square measuring 45" x 45" (ie. Quilter's Dream Select)
• Rotary cutting equipment:  Rotary cutter, 24" Ruler, 6" Square
• Hot dry iron
• Sharpie Marker
• Light box

Tips for fabric selections:

• In order for your mandala quilt to sparkle, choose a variety of fabrics that play well together, making sure to include contrast in colors and value (dark and light values)!! I opted to use Michael Miller's Fairy Frost collection, which features 70+ colors with pearlescent and glittery accents.
• Choosing a dark colored solid for your background fabric will allow your mandala design to really pop!! I chose Michael Miller Cotton Couture in Plum.

Cutting Mandala Shapes:
There are 226 shapes utilized in my mandala design!! It is based on an 8-repeat design, which requires repeats of 8 identical shapes to wrap around each concentric ring. Moreover, the petal shapes and accents all feature curved and/or pinked edges.

Again, this project is meant to be meditative and stress-relieving. Thankfully, using the AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutting System and speciality GO! Dies makes quick and easy work of accurately cutting out all 226 intricate shapes needed to achieve my mandala design!!

AccuQuilt GO! Cutting Equipment Used:

• AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter
• GO! Fantasy Flowers by Robbi Joy Eklow Die (#44381): Large Petal, Small Petal, Skinny Petal, Spiral Accent, Small and Large Pinked Circles
• GO! Heart: 2", 3", 4" Die (#55029)
• GO! Circle: 2", 3", 5" Die (#55012)
• Accompanying Cutting Mats for each Die

Tips for Quick & Efficient Cutting Using the AccuQuilt GO! Cutter and GO! Dies:

1. Mark Dimensions/Boundaries onto your GO! Dies. I picked up this trick from watching Ebony Love's Die Cutting for Beginner's DVD (by Quilting Arts). She shows how she adds 1/4" margin around each shape and marks these boundaries and measurements using a Sharpie marker. Taking a few minutes to do this on all your GO! Dies will save you time and effort on your projects!!

2. Refer to those marked dimension to measure and fuse strips of Pellon Wonder Under 805 onto the backside of your fabrics. Follow the instructions provided by Pellon for iron temperature and duration. Allow fused fabric strips to cool prior to removing paper backing prior to subcutting into the squares/rectangles needed to load onto your GO! Dies. Save paper backing (especially from some of the wider strips) for later use in cutting and assembly.

3. AccuQuilt recommends feeding up to 6 layers using the GO! Fabric Cutter. To account for the addition of the fusible layer, I made piles of 4 to load onto my die and feed through my GO! Fabric Cutter to achieve all 8 or 16 units needed for my mandala design.

4. The Spiral Accent shape included on the GO! Fantasy Flowers by Robbi Joy Eklow Die (#44381), requires some special cutting considerations. These tendrils are a little over 1/4" wide and require a delicate touch when removing from the GO! Die so as to prevent distortion/fraying. Typically I had an easier time removing the cut spirals when I placed the fusible side down onto to the die. However, in order to achieve Counterclockwise Spirals, you must place the fabric fusible side up. On ocassion, the fusible side would stick to the Cutting Mat. This was easily prevented by layering a piece of the saved paper backing between the fusible side and your cutting mat!

Tip for Organizing Mandala Parts:

Thanks to my quilting/teaching friend Sarah Goer for introducing me to using Fast Food Trays to layout and organize my quilting units. These trays are available for purchase through Amazon, come in a variety of colors and sizes, and are perfect for organizing and safely transporting your piles of mandala shapes!!

Mandala Layout and Construction:

Step 1: Prepare Your Quilt Sandwich

• Layer your quick backing (wrong side up), batting, and quilt top onto a large table, taking care to smooth out any wrinkles/pleats.
• Press your quilt top in half vertically and horizontally to create a center cross. These X and Y lines will create 4 quadrants and will help with the even placement and alignment of your mandala shapes.

Quilt Sandwich Prep

Step 2: Create Your Center

Layer a fused 2" Heart (Snow) on top of a Small Pinked Circle (Calypso) between a sandwich of discarded paper backing prior to fusing together. The paper backing sandwich will prevent having any of the fusible transfer onto your iron and/or ironing surface. Center the assembled heart/circle using the pressed lines but do not fuse down at this time.

Fairy Frost fabrics/colors used for each shape indicated in parenthesis.

Create Your Center

Step 3: Add Your First Petal Ring

Layer a Clockwise Spiral Accent (Cupcake) onto a Small Petal (Petal), and repeat to make 8 Spiral/Petal units. Center and position a petal along the North, West, East, South lines and then fill in with the remaining 4 petals. Slide ends under the center Heart/Circle. Again, do not fuse down as you will be adding additional layers underneath.

Ring #1

Step 4: Add Ring #2

Make 8 units by layering a 3" Heart (Soft Pink) on top of a 4" Heart (Snow). Center a Skinny Petal (Grass) on top. Slide under Ring #1. Once all the new petals are positioned into place, use a hot dry iron in the very center only to tack those elements into place, taking care to leave the perimeter unfused and accessible for subsequent layers. 

Ring #2

Step 5: Add Ring #3

Make 8 units by layering a Small Petal (Calypso) onto a Large Petal (Sunny) and embellishing with a 2" Heart (Butter). Slide into place.

Ring #3

Step #6: Add Ring #4

Create 8 petals by layering a Small Petal (Hyacinth) onto a Large Petal (Mermaid) and embellish with a Counterclockwise Spiral Accent (Orchid). Position into place and flank with a 3" Circle (Fancy) on each side. 

Ring #4

Step 7: Add Double Heart Designs

The petals created thus far were simple and easy to construct and achieve nearly identical units without the need to measure. This next shape is a bit more intricate to construct. A 3" Heart (Flower) is centered and fused onto a 4" Heart (Soft Pink). 

As there are lots of different shapes and angles involved, I created one complete unit by placing 2 Small Petals (Snow) side by side with a slight overlap and embellished with a Clockwise and Counterclockwise Spiral Accent (Aqua). Overlap with 2 Skinny Petals (Avacado). Center and place a 2" Heart (Sunny) and Small Pinked Circle (Whirlpool) under the White Petals. Complete with a Double Heart along the bottom.

Turn over so fusible sides are facing up onto a Light Box and place a sheet of the paper backing on top. Use a Sharpie marker to outline all the shapes onto the paper backing to create a paper template.  Turn paper backing over (marked side down) and place onto light box. For me, the easiest order for layering and positioning the shapes into place was: 1. Small Petals, 2. Spiral Accents, 3. Skinny Petals, and 4. Double Hearts.  Gently slide paper with elements onto pressing surface and use hot dry iron to fuse elements into position. Return to light box and slide 2" Heart and Small Pinked Circle into position before sliding paper/units onto ironing surface for final pressing.

Using the paper backing as a template will make it easier to achieve 8 identical units that can then be positioned 1/2" from the perimeter of your mandala design.

Step 8: Add Rosettes

We'll use the paper backing template technique again to construct the final set of rosettes. First layer a Counterclockwise Spiral Accent (Cupcake) onto a 2" Circle (Sunny) and fuse into place. Turn circle over and trim away the excess Spiral Accent.

Layer Spiral/Circle unit onto a Small Pinked Circle (Cupcake) and embellish with two 2" Hearts (Grass). Again, I created one unit and made a template to assist with the placement of the spiral and heart leaves.

Nestle a Rosette Unit between a Double Heart Unit approximately 1" from the perimeter of your central mandala design.

Before fusing your design into place, look over your entire mandala design and perform any finetuning necessary.  Look for any gaps between elements where the background is unintentionally exposed along with any unevent distribution of shapes/elements. Once you are happy with the final layout, use a hot dry iron to tack everything into place before carefully relocating entire quilt onto an ironing board for a thorough pressing.

Quilting and Finishing:
Minimally you will want to topstitch around each shape to prevent peeling/fraying of your edges. This is the perfect opportunity to add a few other whimsical quilted details. I like to audition different quilting designs and stitching pathways by placing a sheet of acrylic plastic and doodling with a fine-tipped dry-erase  marker.

I had fun using a variety of 40 and 28-wt threads to add some embellished details including scallops/petals, zig zag borders, gingko leaves, and spiral feathers.

Quilting Details

Once all the quilting is complete, I marked a large circle perimter (approximately 40" in diameter, taking care to add extra background space so the binding does not cut into any of my mandala design). A compass was fashioned by tying a length of non-stretch ribbon around my marking tool and using my finger to anchor the other end of the ribbon onto the heart center.  Binding strips were cut on the bias and sewn just inside the marked circle perimeter. Once the binding strips were sewn and attached onto the front of my quilt, I trimmed away the excess quilted background and pressed the binding onto the back for finishing.

Spring in Bloom, Finishes 40" in Diameter

Using Cotton Couture solid for the quilt back and matching bobbin thread yielded a wholecloth quilted mandala on the backside.

These mandalas are so much fun to design and create! There are so many ways to combine and layer these shapes to yield all new mandala designs! Using the AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter and GO! Dies makes it quick and easy to cut out all the shapes so you can experience the fun and Zen of playing with all the design possibilities!!  Namaste!