Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Year of the Snake Quilt - Adding the Appliques


Okay I'm back!  Last week I showed you how I make pieced backgrounds for my quilts.  Today I'm putting on the appliques!

After the background is sewn together and ironed flat, I place pieces of fabric around the background in the general position of where I think I might the appliques I make from them to be.


Next I cut newspaper patterns of all the pieces I think I'll want.  Notice I said "think" - this changes as I move them around and see how much space they take up.


I then cut out the fabric, using the paper patterns, and put Steam-a-Seam on the wrong side.  You can buy this by the yard at many quilting shops, but I have a lot of odd pieces from the squares I've been saving so I just patched them in!


When you iron the pieces on to attach them to the background, start with the furthest back piece first - the piece that other pieces overlap - and then work your way out.  On my quilt, that's the rising moon.  I printed a piece of printer fabric organza (see this past post for more info on that) to add some depth and pinned this on top of a piece of white fabric (cut out in the same shape - I used a paper print out of the moon for this) that I first ironed on.



After I got the top half of the quilt appliques ironed on, I zigzagged around each edge with a small stitch.


Next it was on to the bottom half of the quilt!  I wanted to duplicate the moon features on the moon's reflection, so again I first ironed on a same sized piece of white fabric, pinned on the moon printed on the organza, and zigzagged around the edges.


And finally, the snake - with two embroidered eyes!



Next week I'll show you how I finished it up!

Happy Creating!  Deborah

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