Pieced Vehicles – Improv Style

Bulldozer Tutorial:

1. You will need background material, in this case tan, a solid for the window and another for the body

of the bulldozer, as wel l as some black fabric for the tracks. I used a black polkadot but avoided the

white dots. You’ll also need a scrap of fusible web.

2. Rough cut some of the pieces of your bulldozer – an angled rectangle for the window, surrounding

tan strips, a rectangle for the body of the bulldozer and two strips for the dozers blade and connecting

piece, as well as strips of background material.

3. Sew tan strips on either side of your window fabric.

4. Sew a tan strip onto the top of the window unit. You can trim the top straight across before or after

you sew on the tan strip.

5. Sew long tan strips into the top and bottom of a yellow rectangle placed horizontally. This is the strip

that will join the blade to the body of the dozer.

6. Trim the right side of this unit straight.

7. To create the blade of the dozer, sew thin strips to the top and bottom of a yellow rectangle placed

vertically. Trim the right side of that unit straight and then join a long tan rectangle to the right side.

8. Join the unit created in step 5 to the left of the blade unit you just made.

9. Trim the window unit straight across the bottom and then sew a yellow rectangle onto the bottom of

the window unit.

10. Trim the right side of the bulldozer body unit straight and then audition how you want to join it to

the blade unit. I wanted the bottom of the blade to extend lower than the dozer, to account for the

tracks I will add later.

11. Join the blade to the dozer.

12. Trim the left side of the block straight, and add a strip of background material.

13. Square up and trim your block.

14. Now you’re ready to create the catepillar tracks. I drew a long rectangle with rounded edges to

approximate the shape of tracks onto the back of fusible web. Cut out your shape and iron onto the

back of your black fabric.

15. Cut out and iron onto your dozer. I overlapped the bottom of the dozer slightly. Later I will

machine blanket stitch around the tracks in black thread giving the effect of tread.