“Night & Day” Quilt

April 6th, 2011

Ok, I’ve got a new quilt for you, and this one was totally fun to make, from start to finish! Because the blocks are so complementary, I call it “Night & Day:”

These are large blocks because these are large appliqued feathered wreaths. Here’s a shot of the lighter blue background with the dark wreath:

…and here’s a closeup of the darker blue background with the lighter blue wreath:

The background quilting was the rudimentary version of “Plumify It” from “Fast and Free, Volume 3.” It is basically a continuous line plume design where you are randomly stitching plumes in any direction, and because it’s a plume-based design, it will always complement a feather applique quilt. I really wanted the focus to be on those intricate applique shapes, so the quilting needed to be pretty much unnoticed. To help keep it subtle, I quilted it with Invisifil thread by Wonderfil. This is a very lightweight thread (100 wt), even lighter weight than Bottom Line (60 weight.) In this next closeup, look at the stitching that’s just inside the edges of the appliqued feathers:

To me, that is functional stitching that’s necessary from a construction standpoint, not decorative stitching. Because of that, I used Invisifil there and you really don’t notice it unless you’re looking for it. (That’s why they call it “Invisifil!”)

You may be wondering how you make a quilt like this and it’s surprisingly easy! You choose how large you want your wreath to be and then lightly trace a circle that is the starting point from which you’ll flow both the inner and outer plumes. Because you’ll need to fuse your applique shapes down with an iron and you don’t want to touch an iron to chalk or a soapstone marker (it will permanently set the mark-ask me how I know this!), you’ll want to use special types of markers like these soap pencils. If you look at this closeup, you’ll get a better sense of how all I’ve done is to lay these plumes and feathers so they just come off an imaginary circle:

What makes the wreath more interesting is the negative space that flows between the outer feathers and the inside plumes…so cool!  The cutting dies to cut these applique shapes will be available soon, but in the meantime, we’ve got something to let you try your hand at using these appliques.  The “Night & Day” fabric kits contain everything you need except the backing fabric, and it includes the pre-fused and pre-cut applique feather and plume shapes!  If you’ve been on the fence about buying a fabric cutting system to cut out intricate fusible applique shapes like these, then this kit will give you the chance to work with these intricate shapes to see just how easy and fun it is to work with die-cut fused applique shapes.  You can find them in the store right here!

Dancing Feathered Star Quilt

April 4th, 2011


Do you remember this quilt top from several posts ago? I have so many tops to get quilted in time for quilt market that I sent it to a longarm quilter to get it quilted. I know, I know…why is someone who loves machine quilting sending out a top for another quilter to finish?! It’s all about the time crunch and I am digging my way out of all the projects that need to be finished ASAP for quilt market, and trust me, I have a big stack of tops that I’m quilting myself! But back to our story…I met Lisa Burmann of Burmann Studios online and she was kind enough to work me into her schedule. Check out the beautiful job she did on the Dancing Feathered Star quilt:

Wow! I love how much texture she has created with her quilting; it makes me just want to touch this quilt all over! Here’s a closeup of the center:

She’s done some very dense quilting right by all the appliqued shapes and this makes those appliqued shapes appear more prominent, or protrude out a bit. As you move away from the applique, you can see the quilting is still dense, but not as much. The freehand design she stitched is kind of a cross between flowers and plumes and it looks just great! Here’s a close up of a star section:

Because she used a double layer of a wool batting, it almost looks like the stencil work is trapuntoed, but it’s not. To me, this kind of quilting really makes a very basic quilt look much more sophisticated than it really is. Remember, this quilt was quickly created by using fusible applique. Here are 2 more shots, each shot from the side in the hopes that the texture might be more obvious:

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lisa! This pattern will be available for purchase this spring!