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Mar
3
Tile Quilt Revival
Filed Under Books, Fabrics, Fusible web, Hand appliqué, Machine appliqué, Needleturn, Prizes | 35 Comments
At the Road to California show in January, I had the excellent fortune to sit at the breakfast table with Carol Gilham Jones and Bobbi Finley. Several friends of mine were staying at the hotel, and they were also friends of Carol and Bobbi, so introductions were made–on a first-name basis–and Bobbi was flabbergasted when I asked her, “Are you Bobbi Finley??” That was a very familiar name to me after years of hanging around with active members of the American Quilt Study Group.
Carol and Bobbi had a special exhibit of their tile quilts in the show. Passing these at warp speed as I did the first time, these beautiful pieces have a stained-glass look, but lighter and airier. Bobbi says that a lot of people compare them to stained-glass quilts, but they’re not. Construction-wise, instead of “leading” applied over the raw edges of the shapes, these shapes are finished with turned edges, and the background is left exposed to create the spaces between shapes.
Tile Quilt Revival: Reinventing a Forgotten Form is Carol and Bobbi’s fascinating, educational, and inviting book that reintroduces this “unique and somewhat obscure” form of appliqué quilt.
Tile quilts are explained this way:
Traditional tile quilts… are constructed with small pieces of cotton fabric appliquéd in a random manner to a white background, leaving a narrow space between the pieces; this white space serves as the “grout” between the tiles or “mortar” between the pavers or stones.
The books starts out with a brief history of tile quilts, with great photos showing examples from the past. Then comes a section on how to make a tile quilt, reinterpreted for today. When I read the following, the heavens opened up and I heard the heavenly choir!
The tile quilt technique, with its large and simple shapes, creates an ideal showcase for bold, contemporary fabrics. Interesting, large-scale prints are will suited for the tile pieces. If you’ve ever found yourself admiring some of the daring prints now available but wondering how to use them, a tile quilt is an idea project for putting them to good use.
Hallelujah! I have a tub of fabrics in my stash labeled “Modern” that has been… well… sitting there.
Now my “daring” prints have a destiny!
The techniques used in the book are so simple they’re ingenious! No need to consider seam allowances, to reverse patterns, or to figure out where to place the pieces. Another really great thing about this book is that it has fantastic appliqué instructions… needle-turn by hand, turned-edge machine-appliqué and fusible machine appliqué too, all expertly explained and illustrated. If you’re reading this blog, you probably like appliqué already, but how about this section where the authors say:
Even if you don’t love to appliqué or don’t consider yourself to be skilled at it, chances are you will enjoy the tile quilt process because it is not exacting. The tile-and-grout form is quite forgiving, and the inevitable deviations from strict uniformity in the grout add to the visual interest and appeal of a piece.
How cool is that?? Get your A-word friends to take a look!
After the appliqué information, there are instructions for several projects with full-size pull-out patterns.
Then there’s a Gallery of Contemporary Tile Quilts. These are fun and inspiring to look at as you see what quilters of today are doing to reinvent the form.
C&T Publishing is graciously sponsoring a giveaway of a copy of Tile Quilt Revival! Leave a comment before 7:00 p.m. California time on Friday, March 5, to be in the drawing. U.S. and Canada only, unless you’d be willing to pay the shipping.
Those subscribed by email, click over the the blog itself and scroll to the bottom of the post to leave a comment.
I wanna start a tile quilt right now, but dang I have deadlines!
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Feb
24
Pat Sloan offers new free BOM
Filed Under Blanket stitch, Designers, Fusible web, Machine appliqué, Patterns, Threads | 3 Comments
The ever-zany daily blogger Pat Sloan has started a new, free BOM. Check it out at Pat Sloan’s Corner. A very cute block and great closeup photography of her fusible appliqué and thread choice.
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Feb
10
Superior report
Filed Under Blanket stitch, Hand appliqué, Machine appliqué, Product demo, Threads | 8 Comments
Yesterday I had the chance to try out the Superior windfall.
This is an old block originally called Wandering Foot. That name was thought to bring on the wandering foot to youths who slept under it, so a new name was given to it… Turkey Tracks. Much more attractive, don’t you think? 
It’s also called Iris Leaf when it’s green on white.
Fused and unstitched.
After some investigation on the Superior website, I discovered that the Holy SuperBobs are Bottom Line, a line of thread developed by Libby Lehman. It’s 60-weight polyester. I perused the rainbow and picked out the color that matched the best.
Wow, you can hardly make it out! It really is whisper-fine.
I fired up my Bernina and adjusted the blanket stitch down a few ticks, reasoning that a very fine thread should be given a pretty small stitch. A few minutes later, and voila! The block was stitched, and looked great! My machine liked the thread, which I used in both the top and the bottom, and Mother Superior says it’s not linty like cotton.
How’s that for blending in? From a short distance you can’t see the stitching at all. This thread might be a nice choice when you really want to mimic hand appliqué while still using your machine, or when using the turned-edge blind-hem stitch method of machine appliqué (which BTW I am not adept at).
One thing I did note is that the edges of the appliqués feel a little “crispy” compared to when I use cotton thread.
On to MasterPiece. MasterPiece thread is 2-ply 50-weight cotton, favored by the Piece o’ Cake gals and by Alex Anderson.
A simple forget-me-not.
Fused and unstitched.
My choices from the rainbow.
I adjusted the blanket stitch to my usual setting, just a couple ticks down in width and length. Away I went!
I like it, my machine likes it. I wound a bobbin for the green, but for the dabs of yellow and blue I used bobbins I already had wound with DMC. Worked great! They really are equivalent in weight so that’s a plus for me that I can mix and match at this stage of evolution in my thread stash.
Now on to hand appliqué. I just happened to have a block in the queue that I needed to stitch up twice, to use as an example in the new book I’m working on for Martingale.
Here are the threads I chose.
Poly on the left and cotton on the right.
I started with the polyester first. I was really excited about trying out this thread for hand appliqué. In the past, when I’ve tried other brands of poly thread, it went around in circles, kinked up, and raveled at the end. I’m delighted to report that Bottom Line stays straight. It sinks right into the turned edge of the appliqué and hides itself really well, and I was not plagued with knots or kinks. Yay! The one thing I did notice is that since it’s more slippery than cotton thread, my thread tail kept shortening up on me and I lost the thread out of the needle a couple times. I guess this just takes getting used to coming from the fabric of our lives.
I was on a roll watching the chocolate challenges on Food Network, so I plunged on ahead to the second version, using MasterPiece cotton. Excellent on all counts.
Can you tell the difference in the completed piece? Neither can I, so I’ve been keeping sticky notes on them .
These pink dogwood blocks may seem kinda pale, and that’s on purpose. I’m going to embroider around the edges of one of them to illustrate how you can better define the edges of your appliqués when you want to use low-contrast fabrics.
Well, thanks guys! I got a lot done yesterday!
Chime in! I’d like to hear from others who use Bottom Line or MasterPiece. How do you use it, why do you like it?
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Jan
24
Butterflies and a spaniel
Filed Under Classes, Color, Designers, Machine appliqué, Patterns, Show & Tell | 2 Comments
A couple of years ago I blogged about Sheril Drummond’s quilt Remembering Barbaro.
Last October at PIQF she had the most amazing, huge butterfly quilt called “Flights of Fancy.”
Flights of Fancy by Sheril Drummond
I checked Sheril’s blog Serendipity and was delighted to learn that she is now offering patterns and on-line classes to help others achieve the stunning look of her quilts. While you’re there be sure to send virtual scritchies to the Cavalier King Charles spaniel .
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Jan
3
Machine Appliqué for the Terrified Quilter
Filed Under Books, Designers, Fusible web, Machine appliqué, Prepared edge, Prizes, Raw edge, Reverse appliqué, Stained glass, Turned edge | 33 Comments
Happy New Year appliqué enthusiasts!
Hey is anybody going to Road to California later this month? I got a call just a couple weeks ago offering me a spot as a vendor and I said yippee! If you’re going to be at this fabulous quilt show and conference in Ontario, California, in two weeks’ time, please come by and say hello! I’ll be in 806.
Now on to our January giveaway, sponsored by Martingale & Company / That Patchwork Place. Sharon Pederson is a Canadian quilter whom I’ve met a couple times, most recently when she came to give a talk at my guild. If you ever get the chance, be sure to go to one of her lectures because it is a highly amusing experience. Sharon’s book Machine Appliqué for the Terrified Quilter is intended for quilters who (like Sharon in a former life) “refer to appliqué as the A word.”
Sharon says that her book is for those who are attracted to appliqué but feel that life is too short to do hand work. Learning that she could appliqué by machine was what it took to make her a total convert! I’ll throw in my 2¢ worth and add that even if you like hand work, it’s great to throw more techniques into your appliqué bag of tricks.
Lots of introductory information is given about fabrics, threads, needles, sewing machines, and stitches. Then Sharon takes you step-by-step through two methods: invisible machine appliqué, where the edges of the appliqué are turned and the stitches are unseen, and fusible appliqué, where the edges are raw and the stitches are visible. Reverse appliqué is also covered.
Sharon gives lessons on a variety of machine stitches, including the satin stitch, narrow zigzag, and decorative stitches, plus how to manipulate them in interesting ways. Great closeup photos accompany this information.
The projects in the book are mostly small and manageable, because after all, “you might be just a little bit terrified about the prospect of machine appliqué, so why further terrorize yourself by trying a queen-size project first?”
If you’re more of a visual learner, you might be interested in the DVD, a separate item. A sample lesson from it is available for viewing on the Martingale website.
Whether you’re terrified or not, this is one great resource for those interested in machine appliqué! Leave a comment by 7:00 p.m. California time on Wednesday, January 6, to enter the drawing for the book. U.S. and Canada only, unless you’d be willing to pay the shipping.
The winner gets my book Easy Appliqué Blocks too, with its companion CD that lets you print 50 designs in 5 sizes!
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Nov
2
I’m a Subversive Stitcher!
Filed Under Articles, Back-basting (no-template), Blanket stitch, Books, Fusible web, Hand appliqué, Improvisational appliqué, Machine appliqué, Needles, Patterns, Raw edge | 3 Comments
Writer Dawn Goldsmith invited me to do a guest post on her blog, Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles.
Of course I wanted to do that! What a great name, and an admirable spirit! I’m not all that subversive actually, but I am totally armed with needles. I wrote a post about the three main sharp implements in my life, showing a few examples of what I’ve done with them.
Be sure to check out Subversive Stitchers, a blog about the abounding creativity of women who wield all sorts of needles.
Thank you, Dawn, one writer to another. What a treat for me.
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Oct
5
Dream Landscapes
Filed Under Books, Circles, Designers, Embellishment, Machine appliqué, Prizes, Raw edge | 1 Comment
This month’s prize winner is Wenche Martinsen of Drammen, Norway. Congratulations Wenche!
I’ve been looking forward to delving into this month’s book, Dream Landscapes: Artful Quilts with Fast-Piece Appliqué
Rose tells us, “Fast-Piece Appliqué is a method of construction that makes easy work of sewing curves, circles, and many designs that you thought were too difficult to put together.”
Once I read through the process, it was one of those V8 Moments. Wow, it really makes a lot of sense!
Rose’s method employs tracing paper, freezer paper templates, and machine-sewing the pieces together from the front… simple and direct. She takes us through a small teaching project first and then provides several patterns and a beautiful gallery of her own and her students’ work for inspiration.
Look at those beautiful flowing curves!
Circles sewn without clipping or pinning!
The book includes a quick tutorial on color, full and detailed step-by-step instructions for Fast-Piece Appliqué, and a lot of information on yarn, which is couched over the top of the stitching lines to delineate the shapes and cover raw edges. The couching also provides the initial quilting.
Then the author takes us through the steps of sandwiching, further quilting, and binding these pieces of wall art, followed by a wonderful section on embellishing with embroidery stitches and beading.
Many thanks to Martingale & Company /That Patchwork Place for sponsoring the prize.
And thanks, Rose, for making me start to dream of landscapes!
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Aug
16
Invisible machine appliqué video
Filed Under Freezer paper on the back, Glue stick, Machine appliqué, Photo tutorial, Prepared edge, Product demo | 2 Comments
On The Quilt Show website, there’s a link for a series of Bernina Educational Videos that are free for the watching… you don’t have to be logged in.
I found this one on invisible machine appliqué that shows the freezer-paper-template-and-glue method for doing turned-edge appliqué with the blind-hem stitch. The link starts up the video right away.
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Jul
8
Hand vs. Machine Appliqué: A Timed Experiment
Filed Under Articles, Freezer paper on top, Fusible web, Hand appliqué, Machine appliqué, Needleturn, Patterns | 13 Comments
I wrote this article awhile ago. I couldn’t get a magazine interested in it, so
I publish it for you here, because I think it’s quite an interesting proposition. This was before I learned back-basting.
Hand vs. Machine Appliqué: A Timed Experiment
by Kay Mackenzie
For quite a long time I was a hand appliquér only. But when I started designing appliqué patterns for publication, I turned to machine appliqué as a speedier way of creating second and third examples of the designs. After all, machine appliqué is a lot faster, right?
Somewhere along the way I became curious about how much time I was actually saving. I decided to conduct a personal timed study to compare a hand method and a machine method. I used a block from A Spin in the Garden, a pattern I was designing.
The spinning vine block in the middle
is the one I used.
I’ll begin by briefly describing the two methods I compared:
| HAND Traditional needle-turn using bias tape maker, freezer-paper templates, and a tracing-paper placement overlay. |
MACHINE Raw edge, small machine blanket stitch using paper-backed fusible web and a tracing-paper placement overlay. |
I used the same block and the same fabrics for both methods. I did not time the initial steps that were common to both methods, including selecting fabrics, cutting background squares, finding my glasses, gathering all materials, supplies, and notions, numbering the shapes in placement sequence, and assigning the colors on the pattern.
After organizing my thoughts and the projects, I set to work, watching the clock and recording the time for each step. I did one method all the way through, then the other. Here are my results.
| HAND | Minutes | MACHINE | Minutes |
| Trace pattern quickly onto tracing paper to make placement overlay. | 2 | Trace pattern carefully onto tracing paper with a heavy marker to make placement overlay, also serves as reversed pattern. | 5 |
| Using front of pattern, trace a freezer-paper template for each shape except vine. Cut out templates precisely on drawn lines. | 8 | Using reversed pattern, trace a fusible-web template for each shape, including vine. Cut out templates roughly outside drawn lines. Cut away centers of flower and leaf templates. | 14 |
| Iron templates onto right side of assigned fabrics. | 4 | Iron templates onto wrong side of assigned fabrics. | 7 |
| Cut out shapes, leaving a turn-under margin outside template. Clip notches. | 6 | Cut out shapes on drawn line. | 8 |
| Make vine using bias tape maker. Apply thin strip of fusible to back of vine. Trace vine placement onto background fabric. | 6 | ||
| Clean and oil sewing machine, change presser foot, insert new needle. Wind bobbin for each thread color. Adjust blanket-stitch setting, test stitching. | 8 | ||
| PREPARATION SUBTOTAL | 26 | 42 | |
| Fuse vine in place. Stitch vine. Then, one shape at a time, using placement overlay, remove templates and place, baste, stitch using thread to match each shape. | 160 | All at once, using placement overlay, remove paper backing and place, fuse, stitch using thread to match each shape (all of one color is stitched before changing thread). Pull thread tails to the back, knot, and bury. | 91 |
| TOTAL | 3 hours 6 min | 2 hours 13 min | |
Hand
Machine
Click either block for a close-up.
It was interesting to note that the pre-stitching phase took longer for machine appliqué than for hand appliqué. Cutting out the centers of the fusible web templates is not applicable for freezer-paper templates, and ironing time for fusible web templates is longer than for freezer-paper templates. For hand appliqué, I didn’t need to set up my machine, and I could trace the overlay quickly and with less care, since it was for placement purposes only.
The time savings for machine appliqué showed up in the last stage, where the shapes were placed, secured, and stitched. The grand total difference in time represented about a 30% overall time savings for machine appliqué.
There’s a lot to think about when looking at these time results. You may be faster or slower at any of these steps than I am. There are many ways to appliqué, and you may use differing techniques that are slower or faster within either hand or machine methods.
Also worth noting is that when I first took up machine appliqué, I don’t think I saved any time at all, because I made a lot of mistakes. Forgetting to reverse the pattern, neglecting to remove the centers of the templates, having the fusible come apart from the paper backing before I had a chance to use it, fusing to the right side of the fabric (force of habit from hand appliqué), and probably a few other embarrassing ways to get things wrong — mistakes in machine appliqué are not a time saver! Now I am comfortable and practiced at both methods, and the times noted in this experiment refer to a “clean run.”
Time, of course, is not the only factor for choosing one method over another. Personal enjoyment, skill level, preference for appearance, portability, appropriateness for the chosen project, type of sewing machine, these things and more can come into play when choosing an appliqué method.
I’m so glad I decided to conduct this personal timed study. Now I have learned that when either method is equally appropriate for my project, and time is the deciding factor, I’ll be saving almost a third by using machine appliqué.
I’d love to hear what you think about this! Did I save as much time as you thought I would?
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs
Jun
26
Ink Jet Printable Fusible Web
Filed Under Fusible web, Machine appliqué, Photo tutorial, Product demo | 6 Comments
More fusible web! I stopped by the June Tailor booth at Spring Market and noticed one of their new products… Ink Jet Printable Fusible Web. They gave me a package to try out.
The package says, “Use any pattern that you create, scan, or download onto your computer.” I would add a caveat… the pattern has to have templates that are separated from one another. The reason is that when you cut out the shapes, you need to leave a little bit of product outside the line, so that when you cut out the fused motif, you’re cutting fusible and fabric at the same time. That gives a clean edge.
Being a designer, I have tons of appliqué patterns on my computer, but I don’t normally design with all templates separate. To try out the printable fusible web, I took one of my simple patterns from Easy Appliqué Blocks, Moon and Stars, and moved the shapes apart. I also reversed them, which is what you need to do for fusible appliqué. (Didn’t need the centering lines just to print the templates, but I forgot to remove them.)
I took all the paper out of my printer tray and loaded one sheet of fusible web per the instructions. On my printer, the printable side is down so that’s how I loaded it, with paper side down. Then I sent the print job. Well, the sheet crept out of the printer slower than a snail’s pace. I couldn’t figure out why, so I checked my print settings… yep, it was set on Quick. Then I remembered that the package said to use a ‘plain paper’ setting. I rechecked my settings and changed the paper type from automatic to plain paper and tried it again. Voila! It printed on out like I thought it should. On automatic, my printer detected that this was some sort of weird stuff moving through its interior and did the best it could to interpret how to print on it. This was a case of RTFM. If you don’t know that term, it’s short for Read the Fabulous Manual. (Sort of.)
Here’s the printed sheet.
I cut the templates apart.
Then cut the centers away.
Fused to the backs of my appliqué fabrics. (Note: the package says to use no steam, and really, you’ll need to use a dry iron. In case you left any of the lines at all, let’s just say that steam and inkjet do not play nicely together.)
Here’s what the glue looks like after it’s been fused to the motif. Kinda shiny-like.
I positioned and fused the shapes to the background fabric. The instructions again say to use no steam. Normally I would use steam at this stage, because my understanding is that that’s what activates the glue. But I used a dry iron, and, after an initial press, “glided” it as the instructions said to do. Worked fine.
I stitched with my usual small machine blanket stitch and all went well. There was no gumming of the needle.
The product performed quite well for me, and acted just as it said it would. Something to think about is that if you mess up a template, it isn’t going to be all that easy to reprint just one template.
And, all this product was left over. That’s not going through my printer again. I guess I’ll save it and try using it in a future project the old-fashioned way, by tracing.
So, if you see June Tailor Ink Jet Printable Fusible Web and you also have appliqué templates in electronic form (original, scanned, or downloaded), pick up a package and try if for yourself! It costs more but you may enjoy the time saved and accuracy of not having to trace your templates.
Until next time,
Kay
Quilt Puppy Publications & Designs
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