Crafted Appliqué: New Possibilities

Welcome to my turn in the "Crafted Appliqué: New Possibilities" blog hop!

I am thrilled to have been asked by my long distance friend Lara Bucella of BuzzinBumble to take part in this hop celebrating the publication of her book.

For a whole month now we have been happily hopping, showing what can be achieved with Lara Bucella's new method of appliqué. And still we are not quite finished! If you are new to the party do check out the blog hop schedule at the end of this post for a wide variety of appliqué posts, reviews of the book, and giveaways at every stop!

- of course I have a giveaway, too, find it at the end of this post -
GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED
Winner announced in my next post!

But first, what did I think of Lara's book?
Over the years I have been doing all kinds of appliqué: Starting so many years ago with the Gardener's Choice (Dresden) block in the sampler quilt I showed earlier this week; broderie perse; blanket stitch (by hand and machine); running stitch with raw edge appliqué; reverse appliqué; needle turn for Baltimore style blocks (drafted for a series of classes); shadow appliqué; stained glass (by machine); Hawaiian appliqué (image here)...
There has been an exclusively appliqué quilt inspired by Picasso, needle turned leaves on "Urban Jungle" (did I ever show those quilts? I will have to remedy that), a jungle themed wall hanging for a school reading corner using fusible, and of course my City & Guilds wall hanging which consists of only fused appliqué.

In all those years of exploring appliqué techniques I have never come across a method like Lara's. Time to test it out with a few small projects!

I prepared some small pieces of fabric according to Lara's method, and used a feather and egg pattern I had drawn. The fabrics were then ironed to a fine shot cotton background, layered with wadding, and stitched down. In her book Lara tends to use a straight stitch to stitch her appliqués down, but I carefully (I am not that confident) free motion stitched them instead so I didn't have to turn the fabric this way and that. The appliqué stayed put while sewing, and not a wrinkle in sight! I turned this into a small pouch which now holds the threads I want to keep to hand for my current project(s).

Then recently, I received some solid scraps and was inspired to make a small rainbow project. Again I prepared my fabrics, and this time I used my Sizzix Big Shot and my hexagon die. Perfect hexagons were the result:

Laying out a hexagon rainbow

The hexagons stayed in place while I transferred the fabric from the table to the ironing board and were ironed in place:

Then over to the machine to add some stitching:

Now, if you noticed the coloured panel on the bottom is different in these pictures, that is because I made two! And sure enough these panels, too, were turned into pouches:

Rainbow pouches

Even though the panels went through a fair amount of handling while transforming them into these pouches, the hexagons with their raw edges stayed crisp. And unlike when I stitched my wall hanging, my needle showed no sign of gumming up at all. The backs of the pouches got some decorative stitching, and off they went to surprise their respective recipients. One has arrived recently, the other should be at its destination soon, hopefully is also at its destination.

So while I have used many techniques for appliqué, I am happy to add Lara's new technique to my list of appliqué methods. And if you want to learn her method too, I can only recommend her book!
The book is written in a friendly and accessible voice, she seems to be sitting at your shoulder explaining all. Not only that, she has tested and compared her method, found the best way to use it, and added seven highly original projects for you to try. If you want to know more, do check out the other stops on the blog hop. Lara herself shows images of some book projects, and many other bloggers have tried the method in their own projects, or using patterns from the book. And all stops have the book to give away, too (though some have closed by now, others are still active), and Lara herself is giving away the most generous prizes to be drawn on June 4th - hurry!!

So now for the giveaway:

Comment below for a chance of winning Lara's book directly from the author. If you want a subject, tell me which types of appliqué you have tried. And for an extra entry, tell me how you follow Studio Sew of Course. I will draw one winner after Thursday June 9th. Please be sure I can contact you if you win!

And if you cannot wait and want to buy the book right now (here, here, here, here, or here, and probably in a few more places) go ahead; Lara has said she'll reimburse you instead if you win.

EDIT: please make sure to check if you could be a NO-REPLY blogger, and if so (or you're not sure) leave an email address! I have 10% no-reply bloggers at the moment, and if I can't contact you you can't win!! 

Good luck!

Linking up with:

Midweek Makers

Let's Bee Social

Fabric Tuesday

Sew Cute Tuesday

Linky Tuesday

The Giveaway Roundup

 Sandra

Crafted Appliqué… New Possibilities Blog Hop - May 1^st to June 5^th 2016

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
1 Lara Buccella BuzzinBumble Introduce Tour   Introduce Tour	2 Valerie Smith Pumpkin Patch Quilter	3 Dana Gaffney Stormy Days	4 Lorna McMahon Sew Fresh Quilts	5 Mary Schuberg Needled Mom	6 Heidi Kuntz Red Letter Quilts	7 Alycia Carmin Alycia Quilts
8 Amy DeCesare Amy Made That	9 Sherri McConnell A Quilting Life	10 Lara Buccella Sew Mama Sew Guest Post	11 Christina Cameli A Few Scraps	12 Melissa Corry Happy Quilting	13 Sarah Craig Confessions of a Fabric Addict	14 Soma Acharya Whims & Fancies
15 Valerie Reynolds Val’s Quilting Studio	16 Angela Pingel Cut to Pieces	17 Sandra Walker Musings of a Menopausal Melon	18 Cheryl Brickey Meadow Mist Designs	19 Judy Murphy Quilt Paradigm	20 Yvonne Fuchs Quilting Jetgirl	21 Cindy Pieters Stitchin’ at Home
22 Susie Zlogar Susie’s Sunroom	23 Connie Campbell Freemotion by the River	24 Ruth Bourke Charly & Ben’s Crafty Corner	25 Kaja Zieslar Sew Slowly	26 Ann Brooks Fret Not Yourself	27 Cynthia Brunz Quilting is More Fun Than Housework	28 Holiday
29 Holiday	30 Holiday	31 Jenn Trott-Zisserson Quarter Inch from the Edge	1 Paulette Horn The Way I Sew It	2 Sandra Jansen Studio Sew of Course (that's here)	3 Christine Sherman Triangles & Squares	4 Darlene Simmons Quilt Shop Gal
5 Lara Buccella BuzzinBumble Giveaway Winners Announced!

A last minute challenge

Last week (and this week, too!) I missed the "Tip on Thursday" (you had been warned it might not be that regular), but it was going to be very short anyway: "Don't decide to take part in a challenge two days before it's due!" Especially when you also have two Christmas concerts and a quilting class to go to in those two days...
No surprise that I didn't listen to my own advice!

I have been a member of the Irish Patchwork Society of Ireland (IPS) for years now. The Southern Branch meet once a month in Cork city, and going to meetings helped me enormously getting to know people when I first moved here, they are a friendly bunch! There is coffee, tea, biscuits and chat, show and tell, demonstrations and/or a speaker, a diverse library, and a shop (of course!). There are also regular initiatives like a block of the month, or a challenge (usually at Christmas and over the summer). While I enjoy seeing what others are making, in all the years I haven't been tempted to enter in any of the challenges and I didn't think I would enter this time either, but I pulled myself together was inspired at the last minute.

For this challenge we were each given three circles of fabric, at least two of which should be used to make a Christmas item. Of course I could do that... I was going to make a table mat anyway (I had seen a lovely eight-pointed one demonstrated just there)! Then I discovered that the circles were not only three different sizes, but also of different types of fabrics: There was a 5" circle print with robins, a 3" circle of solid white flannel, and a 2" circle of plain black felt. Mmmmm. I wasn't so sure now...

However, ideas kept nagging at me, until at the last minute I decided at least I could give it a try. Searching my boxes for Christmas fabrics I didn't find as many as I thought I had, but they had to do. After all there was no time to waste! Before class on Thursday morning I drew some circles on Bondaweb, and while at the class I pondered which fabrics I would use.

Thursday afternoon saw me ironing Bondaweb to the robin fabric, the black felt, and three other fabrics. I sewed the eight pointed shape as a background, played with an appliqué layout, ironed, sewed and quilted, backed, sewed and quilted some more, added some details by hand... and gave a sigh of relief! If it wasn't up to challenge standard at least it was up to my standard and I'd be happy to have it on my table! I even added some gold embroidery to my black felt circle to tie it in with the other fabrics.

And the challenge? Yes, I did win, too, and now I have another challenge to ponder over the holidays: What to make with this big box of flannel fabrics! I have some ideas already...

Sandra

Bloggers Quilt Festival

For several years I watched all those wonderful entries to the Bloggers Quilt Festival, and tried to decide which quilt I should be voting for. This time I have decided to enter a quilt myself, so exciting!
This is my "Vestibule", inspired by photos of a building by Frank Lloyd Wright:

Regular readers are well aware that I have been working for my City & Guilds Certificate in Craft and Design for Patchwork and Quilting (to use the full name for once) for the last few years. This involved a serious amount of sewing and art, and has virtually kept me from any other sewing. Now it is all finished except for a few last stitches, I am looking forward to starting some new projects - and finish some old ones! I have so many ideas in my head...

For the course, I have had to make a cushion, a bag, a box, a wall hanging, and a bed quilt (see the City&Guilds tab above if you want to know more...). Unfortunately, the bed quilt is the one that needs a little more hand quilting to finish, so it cannot now be entered into the Festival (maybe next time). But the Wall Hanging is finished and has been hanging in it's place above the stove for a few months now.

In place above the stove

The quilt is made using raw edge machine appliqué and quilting using many types of threads and different stitches.

quilting seen on the back, before being covered

After finishing the stitching, the edges were faced (no binding) and a "false" back was inserted into the facing for a neat finish. Some detail:

A bit more detail of the stitching

The facing is quite wide for stability, and the back is neatly covered

An earlier post with more detail on this quilt can be found here.

STATs:

size - 34½" x 39½"

materials - patchwork cottons from Soho Chic by Sandy Gervais for Moda, plus one lime fabric from elsewhere; cotton wadding; cotton, silk and polyester threads in different weights and colours

techniques - raw edge machine appliqué, flanges, faced edging, machine quilting

Thank you, Amy, for organising what undoubtedly is going to be another fantastic quilt show!

Nominations for the Viewers Choice can be entered now, and voting starts on May 22...

Sandra

A Box for City & Guilds - Another Finish!

Now the City & Guilds is really finished, it is high time to put up a post on the fifth item that I made as part of the course. Why did I wait so long? Well, let's just say I lost interest at some point and it took forever to pick it up and finish the last few stitches...

One of the five "Items" for the City and Guilds Certificate needs to be a three-dimensional item, and I had decided to make a box. This box is intended to be used for appliqué and patchwork blocks; to store them together, and/or to take them with me, together with fabrics and hand sewing materials, so I can work on them in classes or anywhere else, really. In short, a work box.

The inspiration was taken from images of Tulips (I had to get some Dutch influence in there somewhere, I suppose). I have always liked botanical drawings, so I started out with a few of those and drew and re-drew tulips until I had an image I was pleased with. The idea was to applique the tulip flower and some leaves.

Then I found some lovely silks, heavily discounted (fortunately), but not quite the right colour (unfortunately?). The heavier dupion silk is a green-grey curtain material with a slight slubby effect, and quite firm. Ideal for the box. The drapier satin silk I found in the wedding section, but of course it was white. This then made me take out my silk paints, and have some fun! It was good I did not have an unlimited supply of silk to play with or else I would still be having silk painting fun - and no stitching would have been done on the box at all!

After a lot of samples:

Trying out sea salt effects on silk paint - sample

Mixing and blending to get the right colour for the leaf and stem - samples

Then the "real" work started, a bit scary, because by that time I was down to just enough fabric to make my piece...

Painting the piece of silk to use for the tulip flower

Fortunately, it all worked out just fine! So, then the sewing started:

The leaf/stem shape, and the flower shape were transferred to the dupion silk, and reverse (hand) appliquéd into place. This actually went very fast!

Then the piece was quilted, and stretched over the grey board panel with some extra padding. As you can see in the picture above, I also (foundation/paper) pieced side panels for the box - and left the paper in for stability.

The box panels were slip stitched together, then I added extra stitching to the top edge:

Tabs for the handles were added during construction as well, and the handles themselves were cut to size from a kindly donated lecturer's stick...

So there you have it:

Another job done...

Sandra