Appliqué Quilt finish

Applique Quilt finish 46 x 59 inches all cotton.

This is the next new thing, appliqué pieces on top of an improvisational patchwork quilt top. I was inspired by several quilts and people to try this. Applique is hand sewing technique which has been used for centuries to decorate, using small shapes of colored fabric applied on top of a bigger surface. I used a simple big background improvisation and laid rounded squares on top with a layer of cotton batting in between to add extra puff to the attached applique pieces.

In this image you see the rounded squares and cotton batting cut and applied with long quilting pins to the background hanging on my design wall. I really enjoyed selecting fabrics and arranging my design before sitting down to baste stitch them in place firmly enough to finish sewing them down. The idea of making these rounded squares came from a hash tag on Instagram last year #squircles a word I had never seen but it seemed to be originating from the work of designer Carolyn Friedlander. She who advances the concept of "slow sewing" aka hand sewing and enjoying the meditation that ensues as you work stitch by stitch around a shape. 

I don't know who came up with the word and I am not sure I want to endorse it but square-circles mashed into "squircles" is kind of fun to say and it does make describing this sort of shape easy. Wonder if Websters will pick that up? I had hoped to join in a recent workshop on applique quilting with Carolyn my Washington DC Modern Quilt Guild held but I missed the entry time and had to settle for a great trunk show and talk given afterwards. It was fun because I got to see her and her quilts in person and compare my work to what I had seen on Instagram in her photos of these quilts. I was very surprised to discover I made most of my squircles many times larger than hers. She showed us the Aerial Grove quilt that really got me thinking I should try this, seen below. It's a series of squircles in almost a rainbow of colors which were selected very thoughtfully from a collection of 303 Kona Solids then sewn on to long blocks. Her squircles are about two to three inches in diameter. 

 The whole aerial grove quilt has these appliqued long blocks sewn together then surrounded by a low value patchwork improvisational composition to create a field around the rows of bold colored shapes. See a smaller version below.

Here in this last quilt we see a big collection of her shapes that are hard to name but very beautiful together as a series. She uses a very thickly machine quilted back ground to contrast her hand applique pieces. She gave us a tip I had to try when I got home about packing quilts. She folds them on the bias rather than squared to reduce the chance of making permanent crease marks in the quilt. The fabric is less likely to hold a crease when folded and stored on the bias and each time you unfold it you can refold in new places on the whole quilt to reduce fiber wear and tear.

I chose to hand tie the center of each of my applique pieces to secure the extra layer of batting inside the shapes. I was concerned that when washing that they might shift or even curl up inside and come out of the dryer with balls of batting wadded up. On the really big ones I added four ties. I big or long stitch quilted around each applique squircle and used a winding line to quilt the background. 

 These three images blown up by clicking on them will show you the overall quilting lines that wind in three rows back and forth over the surface. All hand quilted. I used a shirt striping from Denyse Schmidt, that I had been hoarding, for the binding. It was to bring all those darker sections together with the and frame the whole design with a little more patterning. I selected solid, striped, checked, tartan and doted fabrics for a more masculine quilt. All of the improvisation background and binding were sewn on my 1935 Singer #221 Featherweight portable sewing machine.

 It was a fun project and I learned a lot along the way about applique patches as with any new technique I feel like I could do it better next time. I would select smaller pieces to apply and do them on smaller blocks before I sew them together as a finished top. That will require a more planning than I did for this spur of the moment project. Since this is a nap sized quilt and I worked the applique pieces around the edges it went pretty well but I would have been easier to do this in sections, even perhaps in long strips like Carolyn did on her Aerial Grove quilt top.

Stacking pieces is another applique technique I would like to attempt for a future project. Shapes on top of shapes seems like it would be fun. In this quilt I decided to keep it simple and thought this form of applique piece, the rounded square or the squared off circle, brought to mind the shaped color field paintings and sculptures of a modern artist I admire, who recently died, Ellsworth Kelly. If you don't know Ellsworth Kelly's work yet, I suggest you look him up and try to find one in a museum because they are so wonderful in their simplicity of form and powerful colors! What an inspiration his work is for this modern quilter. From a recent exhibition at National Gallery of Art his printed shapes floating on the walls. He has other works in the free museums of Washington, DC

Blue Diamonds spread out

One of my readers asked to see the entire Blue Diamonds quilt spread out. I am still trying to find a solution to photographing my big quilts. I want to take pictures like artworks are presented, in a straight forward way but in the mean time here are a few lawn shots I took of it last week while visiting in Manassas. For the full quilt story see the previous post here: http://orangeexplainsitall.blogspot.com/2013/10/blue-diamonds-quilt.html

The backing is all white on white print with the three colors of yarn quilting 

Blue Diamonds Quilt

Earlier this week I finished quilting this blue and white Dresden plate quilt, laid out in a diamond format. Living in Washington DC near the Hope Diamond, that jewel came to mind when I was searching for a title. These Dresden plate blocks were originally based on my great grandmother's quilt of the late1800's. It was around the house since I was a kid and gets special treatment because it is a unique family heirloom. Stuffed with loose lambs wool it has lots of hand quilting to hold it all in place and fascinating patches of old dress fabrics making up each plate.

Great Grandmother's Dresden Plate quilt 

 I found some tips on YouTube about how to make the Dresden plate blocks and then I went full steam ahead producing them last year in blues and whites. When a few dozen of them were finished I realized I wasn't ready to quilt them, and set them aside until I felt more confidant about quilting. This past two months I began the process of hand quilting this the smaller of two tops with contrasting and matched Perle threads. This fits a double bed and the next one is even bigger which is laid out like great grandmother's version in square format.

Folded back you can see some of the quilting and the navy blue calico binding

Title block embroidered on blue oxford shirt cloth

The one challenge this quilt gave me were the bias cut sides. They stretched and made it difficult to keep it flat and even especially on the long sides. The blue and white polka dot framing helped some but it wasn't a completely flat finish. I wonder if anyone has tips for keeping this large diamond layout squared up?  I would love to hear them in comments below so I can use the diamond layout again with less struggle. 

Further adventures in quilting by the bay

This past week at the Ruppert's Bay retreat I got some big work completed. The first on my list of "things to do" was the space hungry basting of the three parts in a quilt that has to be spread out flat to accomplish, namely basting the three layers together before they can be quilted. The hand pieced top of 54 Rose-Stars was the quilt top that was ready to do this to and I got right to work. Backing laid out and stretched with painter's tape on a hard wood floor (painted red) layered with batting and finally the color filled top fit just right in the room... with a little room to walk around it on all sides. Last year I used this room to make my first machine pieced quilt. I didn't know last year to tape the bottom layer down while working which this year made the whole process much more accurate and easy. It was still hard labor to crawl on the floor stitching in large basting stitches with a long needle and thimble to push it through the three layers and back up. My figures were sore my knees and eventually my hip from laying on my bony side... But in less than 24 hours it was done folded and set aside to make way for the next project.

Rose-Star quilt basted fully stretched out on the floor of the red house's studio room 

back side of the Rose-Star Quilt is all white printed muslin. Close inspection of the photo shows lots of long dark blue threads running in a star burst from the center.

dark blue pieces for white panels stacked waiting to be appliqued 

 The Dresden Plate quilt a tribute to my great grandmother's of the same design is next. I have 30 blocks with hand stitched central circles appliqued on top of the machine pieced and appliqued plates in blue and white with opposite backgrounds. I also had seven more blocks near complete thinking I might do a small version to experiment with the machine quilting techniques I haven't tried yet with any success.

full sized diamond layout of the Dresden Plate pieces 

Diamond layout for smaller quilt top

The new environment was stimulating and having extra room to spread out and only these two projects on my plate made a new idea pop up. Diamonds? What if I turned the blocks to the side and got a diamond pattern instead of checker board style. It looked great but then I needed half blocks to fill out a rectangle and that would be a step back on this big quilt so I decided to play with the smaller version using the diamond layout and focus on getting the original checkerboard squares laid out and sewn together. It turned out a little bigger than I expected but it fell together so well I am not complaining about extra. I spent 8 months sewing the Rose-Star pieces so I never expected to achieve in one month the machine piecing of the Blue and white project with extra blocks to spare and the green and white fence quilt still on the back burner but getting close to next... The slow hand quilting of Rose-Star will put it all back in perspective.

Queen size Dresden Plate Top seen from my back porch window laid out in the garden

Thirty 18" inch squares appliqued with plates and center circles

Dresden Plate Top spread on the lawn. 

After some time reading in a book on Quilting I discovered a pattern I wanted to try. This is called Seminole after the Indian tribe of Florida who developed it years ago  using only a hand cranked sewing machine. It's a cool strip technique that uses stripes of three colors cut and re-sewn on diagonals in bands. The result of my first experiment is a very neat row of diamonds surrounded by contrasting color and long solid stripes... First I thought I would add some into the Dresden plate blue and white quilt but since it is so large, I think not. The better solution is to make another quilt and get really familiar with this technique. The rotary cutter, ruler and hot iron with lots of starch make this possible and fairly quick work.

first length of Seminole piecing in blues

closer look at detail of the Seminole strip piecing

 It is very exciting to have these two projects so much closer to complete and then a new technique well underway and understood. All that thanks to the time and space provided by our great friends the Rupperts of Fairhaven Cliffs, Md. I am looking forward to playing with all this and more in the coming months as I figure out the next steps. New quilting friends at the DC Modern Quilting Guild gave me a tip to buy a "walking foot attachment" for my machine. I found one on a very sweet web page today devoted entirely to my vintage featherweight Singer sewing machine. It seems from further reading there that the sales man was right it's a highly sought after machine! This link will take you back to the 1930s sewing shop for a little time travel. I ordered the walking foot and expect to have it in a week or two to try machine quilting again using the right foot to keep things smooth under the needle of the crawling foot.

blue and white

Fuji blue morning glory is my favorite of all time due to the colors and it's long lasting blooms

Keith brought me this morning glory plant about 12 years ago from a farmer's market vendor and we have had it growing in our gardens ever since. I did watercolors of it and have not seen the same one anywhere else so I cultivated the seeds from dried pods on the first vine. It's sweet because is is compact and grows blooming from the bottom to the top, remaining open all day, unlike other types of morning glories.
I really like the clean look of a rich blue and white design in this flower. Seeing it this morning was a reminder how much I do like this plant but it hasn't done very well this year. I hope I have enough seed to start it again next year.

Yesterday Keith and I took a trip to Joann's Fabrics in Greenbelt, Maryland and he bought me a few more blue patterned fabrics to work into the blue and white project, by bed time I had completed 12 plate blocks. We had a deluge of 2.20 inches of rain fall on our garden last night! During which I tried out some new PVA material "Wash n Gone" that melts away in water to cut and turn over some circles for the center of each "plate" it works like a dream saving a lot of hard handy work turning and stitching by hand these parts. Still I have a dilemma to solve. I have centers to match the plates or center's to match the background fabric and I can't decide which is better. I was leaning towards the matched plate and center circle but this morning I am looking at the background match and thinking it is more like Great Grandmother Cassell's quilt my inspiration.

center circle matches background 

center circle smaller and matching the plate color

dark plate with dark center

When you see them all on the design wall you get a better sense of the feeling. It seems to integrate better when the center of the plate matches the background than when it matches the plate. I am curious what my readers think? Match the background or match the plate? Leave a comment and help me decide. Now it's time to get back to work on my plates, only 18 more to go...

Proof in the rain gauge we got a lot of rain this morning from that tropical depression that visited Mississippi valley last week! 

The New York asters are blue and our garden clogs are bright orange which is a nice complement.