Tag Archives: applique

Magen’s Flower Garden…

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Look what Linda made for her neice, Magen!


MagensFlowerGarden

Linda rediscovered the joy of English paper piecing and has been going to town with hexagons. She made the flowers and then appliqued them to the quilt. I've just put the pattern up on the web site. Click here for more information about the quilt and the pattern.

It's always interesting to write instructions for a technique that I haven't written about before. Linda gave me the tips that she had come up with as she worked on this quilt. I combined that with what I know from my own English paper piecing. Steve took the photos to illustrate the techniques… all of that went into this new pattern. Here's one of the how-to photos:


HexPrep-09

I really love digital technology! Imagine, 10 years ago it would have taken a lot more time and money (and printing, warehousing, and shipping) to get this pattern from us to you. It's amazing when you think about it. (FYI – I'll probably upload a movie showing how to English paper piece in the near-ish future.)

I'll send a newsletter soon announcing this pattern, and new fabric that isn't online yet, and there is one more pattern to get up… but before then I thought I'd share Magen's Flower Garden with you.


Building backgrounds…

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I just finished teaching a 2-day class based on my quilt, The Ground, As Seen From Above. This class is very much about cutting organic lines, without a ruler. This is lots of fun once you get into it but it's very different if you've never cut without a ruler or measurements to follow.

On the first day my students constructed their backgrounds and they are all wonderful! Here is Karla's, a lovely mix of green and blue batiks:

Ground-Karla

And Susan's. I love the purples she used! 

Ground-2

Faye's quilt is a lot darker than it looks here, and a bit more wine-colored. I love the movement in it!

Ground-Faye

Hope's quilt is actually greener than it looks here, and it's very pretty. The light, open spaces are well-placed.

Ground-Hope

Kathy's quilt is fresh and happy, with a great mix of patterns:

Ground-5

I love the way Bonnie played with the open space in her quilt.

Ground-Bonnie

It was fun to see Christy working on her quilt – she looked so good in standing in front of it!

Ground-Christy

Christy's mom, Marilyn, worked in vertical strips. The areas of blue shine through:

Ground-Marilyn

Mary was deciding on the colors of her wheels when I took this photo – when last I checked she was liking the brown ones. She has a nice mix of textures and values going on:

Ground-Mary

Paula's inspiration is a New England fall and you can see it in her quilt:

Ground-Paula

Today we appliqued and it was another good day. I'm proud of how well everyone did!


What’s behind Door #2?

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I think there is a happy family behind Door #2! I know the new block looks way too big to fit with Door #1, but it gets trimmed to size after the applique is complete. 

DoorNumberTwo-04

I've made some progress since I last showed you the doors. The panels in the yellow doors are reverse appliqued and the 'stained glass' window over the door is stitched off the block. I needed to get the whole door and trim appliqued so that I could set the rest of the block together. I've designed these blocks so that they can be set together in one quilt or stand alone as individual quilts.

Here's a tip for stitching something like the window. Cut the underneath fabric bigger than it needs to be (in this case it's the floral print). Trace around the template onto the underneath fabric. Trace and cut out the smaller pieces. Finger-press them and sew them to the fabric like this…

Window_OffBlock-1 copy

Once the 'spokes' are sewn to the underneath fabric you can treat this as one piece and sew it in place. 

As I type this I'm taking a break from cutting leaves for the plants that go next to the door. I'm going out of town tomorrow to visit the Mississippi Valley Quilt Guild in Iowa and I really want to have some stitching to take with me. So now I'm going to get back to it!

FYI – You can click here to read about my class for Adventures In Italy where I will be teaching from the door patterns. My class is called Open A Door To Adventure.


A baby quilt, with attitude…

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We have 2 pregnant nieces; both are having girls in mid-August. I promised baby quilts. (I also promised the AAQI Quilt, a 12" block for a magazine, and I can't remember what else between August 1 and 15. Oh my.)

But back to this story… I put together the background for baby quilt #1 before I left home. I'm going to use the butterfly pattern and the stitching techniques from Applique With Attitude for this quilt. I plan to machine quilt the background with lots of lines. I think it's going to need lines to calm it down, pull it all together, and to make the butterflies stand out.

BabyQuilt-Alea

I think it's easy for those of us who applique, or who quilt in general, to try to put too much on a baby quilt. I want them to use this quilt. If the quilt has too much 'wonderful' applique, it might end up folded in a drawer, saved for the special occasion that never comes because it might get dirty.

This quilt is going to be pretty and fun and very use-able. And if the baby makes a mess on it it's likely going to be hard to see amid all that pattern.


I’m working on the borders…

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AAQI-SamplerImage-06

I haven't trimmed the center block yet so it's a bit out of proportion, as is the border. There are two side borders, none top and bottom. This AAQI quilt will finish at 16" x 16" – a nice to hang, don't you think?

Notice that Nan has her purse now. I am tempted to tuck a hankie up her sleeve (that's where she always carried her hankie) but I think it would look like a 'mistake' rather than an intentional object. I'll just imagine that her hankie is there.

I had intended to use a ribbon or bias strip for the twisty vine in the borders but it just wasn't working out. So I broke the vine into overlapping pieces and that is working well.