adventures of a quilting diva

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.

At Moonlighters last week Maralyn Stocker gave a presentation on molas. They are made by the Kuna women of Panama. Bright and cheery, they make the best eye candy! Here are a couple for your enjoyment:

If you want to learn more about molas, here are some links:
Charlotte Patera: What is a Mola?
Indigenous art from Panama: About Molas
Wikipedia: Mola (art form)

Still way into beading, I’m working on a beaded appliqué design for my March 12×12x12 project. I’m still using that bad batch of Wonder Under, which I really need to return. The paper doesn’t want to come off the back, shredding the appliqué edges. I was too impatient to leave it for days first. Luckily the beads cover the edges well, and I zig-zagged around the fabric first for extra protection before adding the beads.

My February 12×12x12 challenge is done (minus the binding as usual). I hope I can finish it off before my guild meeting next Friday, when we’re all supposed to bring Valentine and/or red quilts. I really like the backing fabric on this quilt (and the fabrics on the front as well). The lettering is done in black beads and the white dots have pearly white beads on them, which you can’t really see unless you’re up really close. I think the lively tossed hearts pattern helped me make the lettering more carefree. Marking the letters wasn’t working so I beaded them freehand. I love the texture the echo quilting makes. Even though it was hand quilted, it still drew in the fabric quite a bit. I think it shrank an inch in each direction. I barely had enough left to make the 12 inches square.

I’m really glad this one is done. There are a lot of designs I want to sketch before I forget them all. See more 12×12x12 challenge quilts at the Quilt Studio blog.

January’s Fast Friday Fabric Challenge was “cropped still life, with form/illusion of dimension”. You can see my quilt (9.5×9.5 inches) front and back above, as well as the original photo. Part of the challenge was to crop the image on three sides. At first I was annoyed that I had to do this, but in the end it made a much more dynamic and interesting composition. I’m definitely going to explore cropping again!

This is a two-sided quilt. I’m not sure how to display it since I don’t want a sleeve to cover the thread-painting side. I want to be able to hang it from either direction and flip it over on my wall from time to time. Any suggestions?

I haven’t added the binding yet, but I’m considering it finished enough to be on time (2007 challenges: 1 on time, 1 missed deadline/not finished yet, 1 almost finished/good chance of making the deadline, for those who are counting). I’ll add the binding when I figure out the hanging system.

Yes, I am planning to turn this into a series. Conincidentally, I’ve been planning other “A penny for a spool of thread” quilts in my head for some time now, using a variety of other techniques. I’d imagined them as larger wall hangings, but now that this one’s done small, they’d look neat hanging on the wall as a collection of mini thread-themed quilts.

Read more about this quilt and see some other great quilted still lifes at the FFFC blog.

I finished my snowman quilt in time for the guild meeting, but just barely. It was neat to see the different ways everyone used the snowman panel—no shortage of inspiration there! I didn’t bring my camera, but if you check the Citrus Belt Quilters website in a week or two, you should be able to see photos of the winners. We also had a magnificent potluck lunch. The CBQ members are not only wonderful quilters, they are great cooks too!

I enjoyed working with the polar fleece. Wintertime is definitely the right time to be making things with fleece. It took somewhere between 5000 to 6000 snips of the scissors to do the raggy seams. At least I was warm while snipping (yes, I did have the spring-loaded scissors which saved my hand from a sure fate of repetitive-motion injury).

The plaids in the plaid raggy quilt were taken from colors in the snowman fabrics so now we have a set of cozy Christmas-y quilts. These ones are for my family. Most all of the quilts I make are given away, and so we mainly have store-bought blankets and such in our home. And since I’m still gathering Christmas decorations, they really add to the Christmas cheer in our home.

happy quilting!