adventures of a quilting diva

Today’s cutting tip has nothing at all to do with cutting fabric, but it will help the edges of your fusible applique stay nice and neat:

Make a small cut into the paper-backed fusible paper before you iron it to your fabric. This will give you a place to grab the the paper and remove it gently without destroying the edges of the applique.

happy quilting! =(^_^)=

Fusible applique is quick and fun. Here are a few cutting tips to make it easier:

• Even if you like a bit of fraying, smooth-cut edges are still important. You don’t want it to look as if your new puppy chewed up your appliques, so make sure you have a good, comfortable, sharp pair of scissors, not too large and not too small. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just sharp.
• Cut slowly and carefully, it’s not a race.

• Cut smart. Notice the differences between the two appliques above. The red swirl is actually only cut once. The green swirl isn’t cut at all! I traced the outer circle and the inner swirl together onto one piece of fusible, ironed the red fabric down, and cut it apart into the two designs. Cut only one swirl, but get two swirl appliques. Then place a simple circle background beneath each one. Clear as mud? Check the pattern below to see what I traced and the photo at left to see what I cut.
• Finally, practice, practice, practice! The more you cut, thebetter you’ll get. Try it out for yourself with my Salt Water Taffy pattern below. It has both shallow and sharp curves to hone your cutting skills.

For a pair of candies as pictured at top right, trace the following onto the paper side of fusible web: one swirly circle, two plain circle outlines (just trace the outer circle for these, ignore the inner swirl), and four of the tulip-shaped wrapper ends.

Fuse the red fabric onto the swirly circle, the green fabric onto the two plain circles, and the white fabric onto the four wrapper ends. Cut out the pieces as shown above, being extra careful when cutting the red swirly circle into the two swirls.

Assemble and fuse the candy pieces together as shown at top right onto a teflon pressing sheet or directly onto your quilt block background squares.

Have fun! =(^_^)=

I don’t know about you, but somehow we ended up with literally mountains of candy after Halloween was all said and done. That got me thinking about candy quilt blocks … maybe some orange and black taffy would look nice.

I always like to consider the shapes of the designs I choose. Chocolate bars are delicious, but their shape is slightly on the boring side. Unless of course, you have some fantastic fabric to spice up their wrappers!

Taffy makers come up with all kinds of neat designs for their candies, and even the wrapper itself adds a great deal of interest to the shape. Salt water taffy is just as fun to look at as it is to eat!

Here’s the sketch I came up with. You can see my first attempt through the other side of the paper. I was trying not to make it too tiny, but that pattern would probably turn out an 18″ block, and I’m more of a small block gal.

My second sketch was just what I wanted: fun, a little bit wonky, and exactly the right size. That’s unusual for me. Most of the time I draw dozens of sketches and then have to scan and resize my favorite one on the computer.

I only drew the one side of the wrapper firstly because I ran out of room, and secondly you only really need the one pattern piece anyway. You can just trace it twice. If you turn the drawing just a little so that the wrapper sticks straight up it could be a radish or a perfume bottle!

Don’t the candy appliques look yummy? I decided to go for Christmas taffy instead of Halloween taffy. Halloween is all finished for this year and I just know my enthusiasm wouldn’t last long enough for me to make much progress on this quilt.

These candies are a lot of fun to make. I might even finish this quilt in time for Christmas. I can’t wait to try the taffy pattern out on other fabrics in my stash.

It’s fun and easy to make leaf patterns for applique. Just gather a collection of interesting leaves. They don’t even have to be in autumn colors, just find some shapes that you like. When you’re choosing fabric for your leaves, they can be any colors you want.

Lay the leaves down on a computer scanner or photocopy machine and print them out. If they’re not the right size you can enlarge or reduce them. This is a scan of some gingko leaves I collected.

If you’re in a hurry you can use the printout just as it is. Otherwise trace the outlines of the leaves onto a new piece of paper and use that as your pattern. Tape the printout to a sunny window and place a blank sheet of paper on top and it will be easy to see.

You can trace all the details of the leaves just as they are or you can simplify the outlines as I did with my gingko leaf patterns below.

Here’s a fun free project I designed using my gingko leaf patterns, Autumn Gingko Leaves Purse Jewelry. You can download the PDF at CottonSpice.net, September 2007 issue, page 40.

So, here’s my latest WIP, from Marguerette Tate’s workshop last week. We started out at the very beginning making a background to decorate. Here’s mine, ready for quilting:

Marguerette has the best technique for creating art quilt backgrounds. You start out with strips and end up with two quilt tops ready for embellishing. We worked on just one in the class and saved the other for another day.

Here’s my background all quilted with the beginnings of the dimensional flower embellishments. Can you believe I finished all this before the workshop was through?

I wanted to do my own thing so I quilted one of my skull appliques to the background. I fused two layers of Kona white together to try to mask the strong background behind the white. That worked pretty well, you can barely see the background through it and it will be strong enough to support the embellishments without sagging. I decided against cutting out the background from behind it, although I might experiment with that in future quilts.

When I got home that night I added some beading and Swarovski hot-fix crystals because I had to show it off at the guild meeting the next day. It’s all in a day’s work.

Stay tuned for more beading and embellishments to come.

Tiny doodles are not only fun to draw, they’re great for appliqué designs because when you’re drawing something very small, there’s not a lot of room for fussy details. That makes for easy appliqué. At left are several doodles I drew for appliqué blocks. You could fit all three of these drawings together on a Post-It note with room to spare.

When you’ve drawn a couple of doodles you like, just enlarge them to your desired size on the computer or a photocopy machine. I scan them at high resolution, then enlarge and clean them up in Photoshop, or sometimes use Illustrator and auto-trace them into vector artwork. Simple image-editing computer programs will do the trick as well. You don’t need the enlarged drawings to be picture perfect unless you are planning to publish the patterns.

After you’ve enlarged them to your desired size, you can print them out. If the lines are very pixelated or fuzzy from the enlarging process, use a lightbox or tape the paper to a sunny window and trace the design onto a new piece of paper.

If you are going to use paper-backed fusible web for your appliqués, remember to reverse the image in your computer program, photocopy machine, or flip it over and trace from the reverse side when you trace it onto a new sheet of paper after printing. That way the design won’t be backwards when you iron the fusible web onto your fabric.

Here are the results of the coffee cup doodles (I haven’t made any quilts from the cupcake doodle yet):

I Love You More Than … is based loosely on the small cup in the top left. I decided to simplify the cup even further by changing it to a straight-on perspective and added the stylized heart-shaped steam. The steam doodles are probably in a sketch pad or another computer someplace.

Latte is the pattern I made from the “large” coffee doodle on the right. I really like this cup and made quite a few variations of it. I seem to have forgotten about the swirly steam. I should make a block with the steaming cup. Maybe I could put the cupcake next to it.

The cup quilt on the left was probably supposed to be a cup of water. Come to think of it, that fabric reminds me of bubbles. It could be sparkling water.

The cup quilt on the right is A Cuppa Beads. Both of these cups are somewhere in my UFO hangar. I was using the cup of water as a demo piece for teaching bead embroidery so it’s not very far along, but A Cuppa Beads is probably ready for a border and quilting.

Below is a detail of the original Latte wallhanging. You will see more of this quilt in early 2010.
Happy doodling! =(^_^)=

I was hoping to finish the machine appliqué on this quilt by today and to then start on the hand quilting the following week. Actually the appliqué was done in about a day and a half, and I am about 90% done with the quilting as well. I astonished even myself at how fast this quilt is coming together. I’m not going to show you the full view until the binding is applied. I may even make a beaded fringe. I’ve got some lovely beads in this color palette.

For a fresh look, why not mix it up with piecing and appliqué together in the same block. You’ll get an interesting variety of shapes without knocking yourself out with complicated piecing or fussy appliquéing.

The diamonds in the corners of the Sakura block are quick and easy to appliqué. Each corner would need 5 separate pieces if they were paper-pieced and custom templates would have been necessary for regular piecing. The blossoms dancing across the block add movement to an otherwise basic 9-patch variation.

The gentle curves of the flowers and leaves in the Tulip Basket block are easy to appliqué and contrast nicely with the angular pieced basket.

Here are some tips for you if you’d like to try mixing appliqué and piecing together in your quilt blocks:

• Simple pieced blocks with fewer rather than many pieces work best for appliquéing on top of.

• Pressing the seams open for pieces that will have appliqués on top will reduce the seam bulk and help your appliqué stitches to be smoother.

• If you prefer to press your seams to one side, just appliqué slowly and carefully over the bumps.

• Simple appliqué shapes will show up best on pieced backgrounds (and they’re the easiest to sew too!)

• Bright, warm colors (think hot pink, orange, yellow, red) will help the appliqués pop into the foreground.

• Light, cool colors (think aqua, blue, green, purple) will help keep the background in the background.

• I used fusible web on my blocks, but there’s no reason you couldn’t try needle-turn appliqué over a pieced block. Just needle through the top layer of the background only, avoid appliquéing all the way through the seam allowances.

happy quilting! =(^_^)=

Dresden Rose

designed by Marilyn Fromherz

quilted by Lynette Harlan

made by members of Citrus Belt Quilters

embroidery designs by Jenny Haskins

sponsored by 1st Centennial Bank, Redlands, CA

Road to California is coming to Ontario January 15-18, 2009 and my guild’s new opportunity quilt, Dresden Rose will be on display there. If you’re going to Road, be sure to look for it, this is one quilt you have to see in person. It knocked everyone’s socks off when it was unveiled at our last meeting. The background is wool with the Dresden appliqués in batik, embellished by machine embroidery and gorgeous quilting.

Speaking of Fidget Quilts, Ann had a wonderful suggestion: “Small children might like something with lots of different textures too. I think lap quilts made from the variety of textures might be nice for children who may ‘fidget’ during worship.” Great idea, Ann!

Here’s a variation for those who like to do appliqué. Some of you may even remember this quilt from back about 2005 I believe (more about Emmeline’s Menagerie here).
All the baby animals on this quilt are made from different soft and furry fabrics. Here are some tips if you want to try making one of your own for a special child in your life.

1). Choose an appliqué pattern with simple shapes. Modify an existing pattern or draw up one of your own. This cute brown bear came from Kari Pearson’s book Playful Patchwork Projects. I added a flower and then drew up more animal friends to go with her. Avoid sharp points and tight curves. Having to worry about difficult or even just unfamiliar fabrics and a complex pattern is a surefire recipe for unnecessary stress.

2). Prewash all fabrics to preshrink and test for durability if you plan for the quilt to be washed in the future. You can find lots of great washable fashion fabrics at fabric stores, which is fantastic, since kids quilts can get dirty quite often.

3). Synthetic suede is really easy to work with. The back is clingy so you don’t even need to fuse or pin it down. You can if you want to though. If you’re going to fuse just set your iron to medium and use a press cloth to prevent scorching. Sometimes you can find faux suede with a dappled/tie dye pattern. A great product to try is Zwade Fusible Synthetic Suede. Zwade comes with the fusible already on the back and is convenient, fun and easy to use.

4). Polar fleece is another good choice. It is clingy like synthetic suede and comes in many different thicknesses and textures. Berber fleece is a bumpy fleece, kind of like lamb’s wool.

5). Other textured fabrics that are easy to appliqué include Warm & Natural batting (use it as an outer fabric!) and wool felt (prewash in hot water for a terrific bumpy texture). Velvet is also not too hard as long as you choose the non-lycra variety.

6). In between easy-peasy and challenging are chenille (sew slowly as you go over the bumps for a nicely finished stitch) and Minky dots (don’t fuse this one, you wouldn’t want to smash those cute bumpy polka dots).

7). Save the furriest, most challenging fabrics for last. Hands are very smart. Think of accomplished guitarists, pianists, or knitters, who don’t need to look at their fingers because of all their practice. After you’ve sewn a dozen or so blocks your fingers will start to “remember” the shape of the appliqués as you guide them under the sewing machine foot. This was very helpful when I worked on this black puppy dog. It was not only the thickest fur on the entire quilt, but it was black too. I felt like I was sewing blind, but my hands knew how to turn the block because I’d already made 19 blocks, including 3 dogs. (I’m definitely not suggesting you should close your eyes while you’re sewing, just that you should trust your hands to know what they’re doing.)

8). If your furry fabric is just too plush to handle you can give it a “haircut” by trimming it down with scissors on the edge where you will be stitching.

9). Another trick is to use a difficult fabric on only part of the block, like the fluffy ears on this little pooch.

10). Don’t limit yourself to just one machine appliqué stitch throughout the entire quilt. Do tests with your scraps and try out the zig zag, satin, and blanket stitch if you have it. (Check out the pink kitty block below where I used both satin stitch and machine blanket stitch.) Non-ravelly fabrics can even take a straight stitch if you wish.

11). For faces, satin stitch the eyes and mouth. A straight stitch can often get lost in fluffy fabric. You can appliqué a piece of fabric for the nose. For children over 3 buttons make fun eyes and noses.

12). Fabric collars and bows make great safe embellishments. Try lamé and other glittery fabrics, brocade, corduroy, and pleather.

13). Have fun embellishing with ribbons and other doo-dads. Be sure to attach them securely because children can and will pull them off. Better to be safe than sorry when embellishing for children 3 and under. Save the beads and buttons for older kids or wallhangings that will be displayed safely out of reach. (Below are some blocks that Annika and I are working on for a wall hanging for her room.)

14). Be bright! Why not make a blue bunny, a pink kitty, or a red puppy? Color your animals with all the colors of the rainbow.