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Saturday, September 22, 2007

Shadow Applique With Silk Flowers - Quilting Tutorial

My Fabulous sister Jeanne came for the weekend. She was our program at our quilt guild.

She taught us some really great quilting tips that I just might blog later.

One thing she showed us was Shadow Applique with silk flowers. It was gorgeous.

Here is a quick tutorial for how to do it.



Materials:

silk flowers

backing fabric

batting (something dense like cotton)

background fabric

rainbow organza

safety pins

daring foot on your sewing machine



Getting started:


Layer quilt 1



1. Layer your quilt back, batting, and background fabric. Make sure that the backing and batting are slightly larger than the background piece.


Layer quilt 2



2. Tear your silk flowers apart removing all plastic parts. Audition the flowers on your background. You can use leaves and fern bits, but be sure to remove and peel off any plastic.


Layer Quilt 3



(here is a larger one I did)


Sleeping Babe



3. Now take a short break and rock your baby to sleep.

(I quilt in the real world which requires MANY interruptions from little ones and requires an occasional snuggle. You must be forgiving of my quilting later as my little prince charming was sitting on my lap as I quilting and we got a bit wobbly with the stitching.)


Layer quilt 4



4. Now audition your organza and find the exact color pattern you want.


Layer quilt 5



5. Now pin the layers in place, through the flower centers. Use safety pins. (the curved quilting pins are great).


Layer quilt 6



6. Now you need to machine quilt your piece. Some tips here are to match the thread to the flower part you are quilting. Use a matching bobbin thread. This prevents any pop-ups from showing. Use a nondescript thread color for the background. I use a mossy green. Also, start in the center of your flower and work your way out. Do the centers of all your flowers first to help anchor your piece.


Layer quilt 7



7. When machine quilting, you need a darning foot and you need to drop your feed dogs. To get started with a color, take one stitch and draw the thread to the top. This way you can be sure not to bunch up or bobbin thread on the back. When you are done you can neatly clip the threads. Remember to secure your stitching before ending too.

Layer quilt 8


8. Free motion quilt around your flowers to add detail.

layer quilt 9

Layer quilt 10

Here is the front and back of the small block. I don't' think it need more quilting as it is so small.

Layer quilt 11

9. Fill in the background as you see fit. This adds great detail and texture to your piece. A safe way is to echo stitch around your flowers. This isn't too hard not too creative and it is easy to pull off without looking too bad.

Layer Quilt 12

I am going to have to practice more quilting. That was so much more fun then I though it would be. Hard but fun.

16 comments:

Emily Cole said...

Hey Lucy - tell your sister what a great Idea that was! I have a question. I am wondering when you filled in the background, did you do it with the blocks sewn together first, or did you do each block first, then sew them together - your back looks so nice with all of the lines joining so cleanly! Em (emandmikeyATaolDOTcom)

Lucy said...

I did two of them. One was a single square and the other was for 6" squares sewn together. (I wasn't sure I could do it because I have never been able to machine quilt so I played it safe and used scraps instead of batik yardage.) :o) Sooooo. The squares were sewn together the whole time. I am just showing pictures of the two projects and they each had valuable pictures.

angeliclenore said...

This is gorgeous!! Yup, I need to live closer!! ;)

said...

Here's a question...is a darning plate the same as a darning foot?

futuregirl said...

Wonderful tutorial ... and beautiful!

Lucy said...

Tara,
I am not that familiar with sewing machine parts but this is what I am understanding; the darning plate is a special plate you put on to cover you feed dogs so you and move the fabric, the darning foot is a special foot that you put on that kinda floats above the fabric so you can move the fabric in any direction.

Craftybernie said...

I love this! Such a great idea and very effective! Thanks for sharing.

Best wishes, craftybernie (fulltime craftyperson & lurker)

Donna said...

I adore this. Hope to get around to making some soon. I have been reading your blog for some time but always seem to come back to this same post. It's just lovely.

Tena Wooldridge said...

LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea! I am doing a psychedelic quilt and the bottom are all flowers, this will be perfect to apply in that area since I felt like the ones I have already done just don't "pop"!

Dolly said...

Lucy, I just stumbled on your blog and these flowers are beautiful. Please tell me if this would be successful without the organza on top? I want to put flowers on a quilt and love the idea of the silk ones, but is the organza part of what keeps it together or is it just for "pretty" and everything would function fine without it? I've NEVER done anything like this, want to make a center panel to an already almost finished asian-inspired quilt, do you have any suggestions? Thanks

Lucy said...

Dolly, the organza is what holds it in place. I couldn't have sewnt hose petals down without it (I am meaning ME personally). I would have hand them all bunched up under the presser foot. You don't have to use a colored organza. That is just what they had at the store and it was pretty and fun to play with. My sister has done it with almost clear organza. There are also water soluble sheets that I think you could use. They wash away easily. Again I haven't use them but watched a friend use them at quilt guild. Home that helps.

Ann Marie @ 16 Muddy Feet said...

OH I love this little wall hanging, thanks for the tutorial, would have never thought about using silk flowers!!!

Anonymous said...

Wow! This is beautiful. I found your site while looking for a way to use some gorgeous butterfly fabric. Thank you for the great idea!

Anonymous said...

Oh wow this looks fantastic, I've got to have a go now.
ClaireBear

Anonymous said...

February 2013 - I found this on pinterest..love it! Thanks

CraftFail said...

Your work is gorgeous! We'll be featuring it as the way to sew shadow applique the RIGHT way on CraftFail on 3/10/14 (yours, however, is most definitely not the fail) with full credit and links. We hope it sends lots of traffic your way!

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