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Appliqué books
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Jul
2
Little Homes
Filed Under Books, Fusible web, Improvisational appliqué, Machine appliqué, Patterns, Raw edge | Leave a Comment
While I was at Quilt Market in Portland, I saw the display by Ackfeld Manufacturing of bunches of darling wire hangers, and it got my mind spinning with ideas. I ordered some of the little hangers and as soon as I got home I set out making some little quilts. I love small things so this was a barrel of fun for me, and it also have me a chance to show off the motifs from my new book Home: A Heartfelt Nap Quilt and how you can use them different ways.
These are all machine appliquéd with a blanket stitch, and I just used scraps left over from making the original Home quilt. I didn’t really plan anything out in advance, just chose the motifs and played around until I thought, ‘hey, that looks good,’ then fused them down. It’s great working this way in between fussier projects!
BTW these little guys are for sale hangers and all, so if you’re interested shoot me an email at topdog at quiltpuppy.com.
Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs
Mar
10
Laura Wasilowski on Quilting Stash
Filed Under Designers, Fusible web, Improvisational appliqué, Machine appliqué, Raw edge | Leave a Comment
Annie Smith of Quilting Stash sat down and had a long talk with incredible art quilter Laura Wasilowski. Listen to the podcast at the Simple Arts website.
Of all the episodes of Simply Quilts that I DVR’d, Laura’s was one I watched back a couple times. Her information about fusible appliqué came in the form of several revelations for me, and I wanted to make sure it sunk in.
You’ll enjoy listening to this interview.
Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs
Jan
14
Julie Hirota’s mosaic appliqué
Filed Under Designers, Fusible web, Improvisational appliqué, Machine appliqué, Raw edge | 3 Comments
Yesterday I took a workshop with Julie Hirota, an amazing appliqué artist and author of Art Glass Quilts. The last time she came to our guild, she taught her art glass, or “subtractive appliqué” technique.
Now Julie’s in a mosaic phase, and today we learned how to go about creating these gorgeous art quilts. Here are some highlights from the day.
We all made up our own designs. Here’s my improvisational mosaic flower.
Janet was sitting next to me. Here’s her project in progress.
And here’s Janet herself. She shared fabric with me. What a good workshop neighbor.
Julie Hirota, with her beautiful Queen of Hearts mosaic quilt.
Julie’s website is www.jhiro.com. If you’re in the mood for some eye candy, be sure to visit. Her work doesn’t look quite like anybody else’s, and it’s stunning.
Julie’s also into handbags lately (you can see some of them peeking out from behind her on the table.) They’re available at Julie’s Etsy shop.
Thanks Julie! I had a great time!
Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs
Dec
3
Positioning
Filed Under Hand appliqué, Improvisational appliqué, Machine appliqué | Leave a Comment
What are some ways of positioning appliqué motifs on the background fabric?
• Freestyle
This is where you don’t worry about matching the pattern too exactly, and just place your pieces where you like. Maybe you’re not even using a pattern, just creating a design as you go!
• Eyeballing
Referring to the pattern, place your motifs on the background so that they look enough like the original for government work. Again, this is an admirable, freeing mentailty, and probably gives the blocks that attractive vintage look.
• Creasing the background
If an appliqué design is set on the diagonal, you can fold and crease the background to provide reference lines for positioning the motifs.
• Tracing paper overlay
Now we’re getting to my territory (I have the curse of the precise. It’s not that much fun.) You can trace the pattern onto tracing paper to create a placement guide. Use vertical and horizontal centering lines to line up the guide with the background square.
• Vinyl overlay
The Piece O’ Cake gals advocate using upholstery vinyl to make a placement guide. They’ve even started offering their own Quilter’s Vinyl by the yard, and there are instructions on how to use it, on their website.
• Light box
This is good for tracing the placement guides, of course, but is also an direct and ingenious way of placing motifs for machine appliqué. Once you’ve gotten all of your pieces fused and cut out, put your pattern on the light box, put the background fabric over it (lined up with centering marks) and place all of the pieces for the block at once. Carefully transfer to the ironing board for fusing.
For dark backgrounds, you’ll need to use one of the overlay methods.
Okay quilters, what other ways are there to position your appliqué? There’s something about a lightweight interfacing overlay… help me out. I’ve heard of it but don’t know too much about it.
Until next time,
Kay
Oct
16
A personal challenge
Filed Under Fusible web, Improvisational appliqué, Raw edge | 1 Comment
A couple of months ago, I set out to make an appliqué project where I would challenge myself in two ways. I would use no pattern, and I would finish no edges.
Both of these precepts were new territory for me. Ever the one to follow the pattern was I, in the last few years particularly so that the samples I made would represent the patterns I created. And, I’ve always been a “neat and pretty” girl, turning the edges when working by hand, or finishing the edges with a buttonhole stitch for machine appliqué. Now I wanted to shake off those constraints and make an improvisational piece.
I selected a stack of fabrics and ironed paper-backed fusible web to chunks of them in advance. (If you’re wondering, I’ve found that regular Wonder Under works the best for me.) I got a piece of black fabric to use for the base. I put this on my table and stood over it, scissor-cutting freeform flowers, stems, and leaves.
The process went on for several days. I had to guard the work-in-progress from cats and dog wanting to walk over it. Every day I worked a little more at it, cutting more shapes and arranging and rearranging them. (I wish I had taken pictures as things progressed… next time I will.)
At last the shapes were packed as densely as I wanted and everything was in place. I removed the paper backing from all of the shapes and fused the entire project.
Now, since the second part of my personal challenge was to finish no edges, I was ready to skip straight to the layering and quilting stage! I had read about how quilters “finish” the edges of their motifs during the quilting process by quilting close to the edge, and I had seen this many times in quilt shows, but I had always considered myself allergic to the idea. This was my chance to try it for myself.
Here is the result of my personal twofold challenge: Free Flowers.
When I showed this to my quilting friends they could hardly believe that it came from me, so different it was from my usual style. I’m so happy with the result of my challenge to myself!
Here are a few things I learned along the way.
- As Laura Wasilowski advises, use fabrics for fusing where the color goes all the way through. Avoid fabrics with whitish or sketchy-looking backs.
- Use densely woven fabrics. Avoid fabrics that are woven from heavy/ravelly threads.
- Be prepared to relax a little bit about raveling around the edges. Since I chose a few fabrics that were contrary to the above recommendations, I spent awhile giving my quilt a shave and a haircut with a sharp little pair of scissors. If you know how to preclude raveling altogether, please let us all know.
- Black backgrounds, especially batik, attract cat hair with a strong magnetic force.
- I would try this again, and choose my fabrics better. I really am a little allergic to fraying edges.
I highly recommend setting a personal challenge for yourself!
Until next time,
Kay
Oct
4
Promote your sewing room!
Filed Under Articles, Improvisational appliqué, Machine appliqué, Prepared edge, Stems/vines, Topstitch, Words | Leave a Comment
One more quilt from “the article” (see previous two posts). This one had its own sidebar!
I made this quilted sign to hang in my sewing room, thereby elevating its status to a “studio.” If you make a sign for your sewing room it can be a studio too!
To form the letters, I made bias tape with my trusty green gadget, the original Clover® ¼” bias tape maker.
Then I used the fusible strip that comes on a roll, except I cut it in half lengthwise to make a very thin strip applied to the center of the bias tape only. That keeps things more flexible.
A fat eighth of fabric formed the backdrop as I played with the arrangement of the letters, sticking pins straight down into them to hold them until I was happy with how they looked. Then I fused them in place. I put tearaway stabilizer behind, and topstitched the letters on both sides. After removing the stabilizer, I added the strippy borders and machine-quilted the sign. Then I got into my button box and tied buttons through the quilt over all of the raw edges of the letters, and now it looks like a quirky typeface!
Bias tape letters are informal, folksy, and fun. Save this technique for a project where the letters are meant to be tall and skinny, because the wider the strips the less flexible they are.
Until next time,
Kay