Strip Applique Project

Dreaming of Summer

 Our Wisconsin winter has come early this year. RATS!  It has been a long gray week so my inner child wanted to make something colorful and fun. Plus, I'm getting another class together. The result is this little project with maybe a too pretentious name?  Sometimes I have the hardest time naming quilts! (Suggestions welcome!) 

Designing the background landscape

 This type of quilt making is demonstrated more fully in my book Lovely Landscape Quilts. They are fun, fast and easy to make using straight strips. The foundation you see in the above photo is a fusible knit interfacing that I buy at Joanne's. It is NOT the kind with those little dots of glue; it has a rough side which is a bit shiny and that is the side we lay our strips on.

Because this is  class project and I provide kits of fabric for my students, I needed to create a landscape which could be easily replicated with different fabrics.  I think making kits with the strip piecing and strip applique style I'm currently enthralled with will be expensive... will I have to buy a yard of 20 different fabrics for each project?!

But I digress. 

Rough draft

 I decided that I didn't like the rock print, it is too different in texture for one. For two, this is a playful quilt, not supposed to look 'real'.  

Much better

 There are a couple of advantages of making a landscape with this technique. First, you don't have to press a fusible web all over the back of all your fabrics. (That gets expensive and then you have fabric scraps you can't use in regular quilt projects.)  

Second, it is easy to flip a fabric around and use the backside - there is no web there.  

Trimming off loose threads

 Once the strips are arranged they can be pressed with a warm steamy iron. Then they need to get stitched down. I use monofilament thread and a loose satin stitch.  Once the quilting is done, you really don't see the zig zags from the stitching and you can trim off the loose threads. 

Checking on the flowers

 I have a whole bolt of white flowers - sometimes white flowers are hard to find so I bought a bolt just to make sure I have them for kits.  I also decided not to just fuse them on but make them dimensional just for fun so I fused a white fabric to the back of the flowers.

Landscape with flowers

 I just wanted to check out my idea before I committed to it so I cut out some flowers and arranged them.  It works. :)

Blocking the landscape quilt

 Because the flowers were going on top, I quilted the landscape first.  In a previous blog I showed you how I block quilts. Basically I soak them, spin out the excess water and use a T-square to ensure even sides and corners.

Dreaming of Summer

 I just straight stitched the skinny flower stems.

Close-up of the flowers

Kind of a fun colorful quilt, yes?  

Now on to the binding... I haven't quite finished this quilt yet.

Comments welcome. Stay warm!