#fusible

[vacantsprings]

Baiser du père, 2019

[quiltails]

The most fun part about making a mandala-style art quilt is that you really can’t add too much. I can bling to my heart’s content.

I had no problem with the raw edges of my applique, but I had all these beautiful braids, trims and specialty threads laying around.

One of my favorites is Kreinik Iron-on ribbon. I first used it in “Picatso: The Artist at Play”, and I had a little of it left over, so I used it to edge my outer blue gear wheel, which had started to fray.

Next thing I know, I was back at the quilt ship to buy more. I was glad I went when I did, because they had moved their entire collection of Kreinik to the ‘sale’ room. Since that usually means they won’t be carrying it anymore, I bought nearly all they had.

The thing I love about this iron-on ribbon is that it doesn’t seem to matter which side you use; both will stick to your fabric when ironed. The downside is that the heat shrinks it just a bit, so you need to go very slowly if you’re using it to edge a motif as I’m doing, and may have to pull it up and readjust. The glue keeps it in place fairly well, but I will still zig-zag over the ribbon with monofiliment to keep it in place.

Since this is a flat ribbon, there was no way to get a perfect point at the end of all my compass points. Fortunately, I had already planned to finish them off with crystals, and as you can see, this size should be just about right.

The other nice thing is that I can do these segments around my frustrating work schedule. Thank goodness I’m off this weekend!

[ecoslo]

Trend-Tex Challenge 2018: On a side note first - I’ve been busy over the past several weeks with day-job work, so I’m a bit behind on my blog posts! I do still try to make time almost every day to work on projects even if it’s only for a few minutes - so I’ve been working away on things, just not posting about them.

So -- every year for Quilt Canada, the Canadian Quilters’ Association hosts a themed mini quilt challenge, sponsored by Trend-Tex. I decided to participate this year and ordered a kit of this year’s designated fabrics, which was a mix of more modern fabrics including some Cotton and Steel prints.

The theme was “Celebrate” and I puzzled over what I would do for a while! But I decided after seeing my mom’s pressed flowers designs (she is making greeting cards with dried flowers), I decided I’d do something similar with fabric - and it could be “Celebration of Spring.” (Which seems like it’s never coming at this point, we’ve still got snow on the ground here in Ottawa!)

I tried a new-to-me technique of fusible raw-edge appliqué. I drew out shapes on paper, then traced them onto the fusible “Heat-n-Bond.” I fused them to fabric, fussy-cutting for some of the flower petals. I tried a bunch of arrangements -- at first I’d wanted to do something symmetrical, then decided I am better with something a little more random! I then fused to the background fabric before quilting. More on that soon!

[paname-state-of-mind]

[quiltails]

I do love Christmas, but there's no denying it can make it hard to get anything else done. Between the hustle of the season and the overwhelming demands at work, I've been too exhausted to do anything really creative. I've stitched a few hexies in front of the TV late at night, but my Robbi Joy Eklow class project and my miniature of "Moonswept" lie on my table covered with plastic (to protect them from cats), and my large fabric collage "Vincent" is rolled up in plastic (again, cats) still waiting to be quilted. Some of my non-sewing friends asked if I was making Christmas quilts, having no idea, of course, that any such real project like that would need to be started well before the season. Still, I did buy a couple of small kits at Houston, which looked quick and fun. Applique Elementz (available from www.urbanelementz.com) makes a nice line of pre-fused, pre-cut applique kits. Simply peel off the backer papers and stick them to your fabric (and if you have a light table, place the enclosed pattern under your fabric for perfect placement). This one is called "Good Tidings" and the finished applique size is 16.25" x 20.75". They included the letters to spell out "Merry Christmas", but I'm not sure I want to use them, as the wreath is so pretty as it is. Putting it together was pretty painless, even with Thumper providing his usual assistance. Of course, I can't stitch it and finish it like this; I need to add something. I suspect Thumper and his fur siblings will help me there, too!

[quiltails]

I decided to make my version of Robbi Joy Eklow's "Steampunk Sublime" larger than the original, because I love the gears and I didn't want to lose any of them in the border. Of course, that means I also need more pieces to fill in the next ring. For the loopy arcs, I was going to use a seamed strip of yellow and orange hand dyed fabrics, but they were part of a strip set, so I only had enough to make the 20 or so arcs of the original. Now I need 50. This Laurel Burch print is one of my favorites accents. I usually use it for binding and piping, and it's too loose a weave for raw edge applique, unless you cover the edges. I am using hand dyed cotton braid from YLI, which I'm holding down with a thin line of Elmer's glue, and then zig zagging with monofiliment (My personal favorite is Sulky invisible thread, because it's polyester instead of nylon and handles so much better). I've also been very careful to not fuse down the edge of the blue inner circle, so I can tuck all the edges under it. One arc down, 49 more to go

[quiltails]

I'm still working ahead on my upcoming Robbi Joy Eklow class, and today I wanted to get my 16 split color points precut. Shadow-through is a big problem with lighter colored fabrics, especially when they're attached to darker colors. I plan to have these light/dark points fused on a dark circle, and I really don't want my seam allowance to show through. To fix this, I'm cutting half points out of fusible woven interfacing, and tucking them under my pressed seams. I've cut these pieces slightly smaller than the finished points will be, so the white fabric won't peek out at the edges. Once those are fused in place, I backed all of my pieces with Misty Fuse and cut out my points. On my plastic template I made sure to include a line down the center so I could line up my light and dark halves. Now I have my 16 color wheel points, which will be the star of my quilt. At this point, I think I have a really good chance of leaving class with a finished quilt top.

[quiltails]

Whenever I have more than one of the same shape to cut out for applique, I usually trace the design onto template plastic and trace my templates onto the back of my already fused fabrics. For these gear shapes on my Robbi Joy Eklow class project, I'm trying this ink jet printable paper backed fusible by June Taylor. Just as an aside, NEVER try using a fusible material in a laser printer. They use heat to set the toner, and it would melt the fusible as it goes through the rollers. The first time I tried this, the sheets slid around a bit and my design was distorted. This might be due to my printer (I used a Canon MX 922), or due to the paper backed fusible being too thin. To fix this, I taped a sheet of copier paper to the fusible side at the leading edge and then sent it through. The result was a crisp print (way better than I would have gotten by making a template) that was easier to cut out of my fabric. One gear down, 29 more to go.