Applique Thursday 4/5/12

A group I belong to has been discussing what markers to use to mark the background for needleturn applique (Esther's new BOM, button on sidebar).  I realized I had never learned that method.  I recently found another at Kay MacKenzie's blog, All About Applique, called back basting.  She has a tutorial here .  It's a pretty cool method and I've been using it on my Jubilee Album blocks (which I should get back to).  However, the method I used with good success before and I still go back to is one I learned partly from a Sulky Thread instructor at a Road 2 Califonia workshop and mostly at a Zena Thorpe workshop.  Here's how it goes:

First I make an outline of the template of the applique that I am going to construct.  This one is for a 6 1/2" block from the book Better Homes & Garden Easy-Does-It Quilts.  The quilt is called Cosy Comforter and was designed by Peggy Kotek. I numbered the pieces in the order I have to lay them down from the bottom up.  Well, I used letters this time.  I then make reverse copies of my pieces and iron, cut out and have ready to assemble.

 I then take the outline to my ironing board and lay my teflon sheet over it, and turn on my iron to a non steam setting.

I take off the paper from the fused pieces and lay my A pieces in place.

I keep building the applique by added the next piece (B), and so forth.  Nothing is fused yet.

And I keep doing that til the whole applique is formed.  Now is when I fuse the shape by laying the iron on top of the design for about 3-4 seconds.  You just want to lightly fuse it together.

Now you will be able to gently lift it off your teflon sheet and place it on your background. Here is the back of the unit ready to fuse to the background which is now over the outline of your form. This is what I learned from the Sulky instructor.  And works fine except for dark backgrounds where you can't see your pattern.  Enter Zena Thorpe.

 

Zena had us make 3 copies of the pattern:  one to cut out to use as our outline, one for the reverse pieces and one for reference.  So here I have placed the cut out outline over my 7" square of black.  I then take my unit of applique and lay it in the outlined space, fuse the unit to the background (8-10 seconds, hot iron, no steam), and remove the paper.

Voilá, my block is done.  I have the makings of a new mug rug.

Would love to see your eye candy, applique or otherwise.  I like seeing your projects.  They inspire and motivate me to think about doing new techniques.  You can link your blog post below.  TIA!

Working on this Wednesday 4/4/12

Have you seen Esther Aliu's quilts?  They're fabulous and I've signed up to do her latest mystery. And I have to get the first block done by the 15th, so I'd better hurry along.  Here's how far I've gotten:

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday. Go to the sidebar to go there and see what others are working on or go to Esther's Forget Me Not mystery page to check it out.

Fabric Tuesday 4/3/12 or Adding a border at the last minute.

UFO #2 for the year is done!  Having tested the quilting motif when I made my last mug rug, I decided to quilt the centers of my blocks with it.  I got ready to bring the back forward to bind my new wall hanging and realized I would like it better if it had a border, but what to do about it now at this stage?  I could have cut off the extra backing and added borders as a QAYG.  Nope, too much work for this one.  I then decided to make the binding wider than normal as I had enough batting and backing to do that.  So that's what I did. 

I turned down the backing to keep it out of cutter's way and cut the batting 1/2" out from the top's edge all the way around.  Then I brought the backing out and trimmed it to 1 3/4" all around the top.

 I then pressed the back by folding the backing to touch the edge of the batting.  This gave me a double edge when I brought it over the batting to form the binding.  But how was I going to align the edge to sew down accurately and evenly as I had forgotten to trim my edges.  Oops.

 After much thought, I decided to draw a 1/4" pencil line along the edges to mark where I would bring the folded backing forward to and sew it down.

 Here's what it looked like as I sewed it.

 The binding did seem much more substantial and wider.  It looked like wide binding so giving me the illusion of a border.

 And here is posey garden ready for hanging over my fireplace once I've added a sleeve and buried threads.  Made all with scraps, blocks from old swaps, and fabric from my stash.  You can find the pattern for this simplified block under my tab:  free patterns.

I'm linking to Fabric Tuesday by Quilt Story, Linky Party Tuesday and Judy's 2012 UFO Challenge.  Go on over to my sidebar and see what other's have posted at those buttons.