I have a friend who needed a special gift for another friend. She wanted a big quilt with a farm theme, but not a cutesy farm thing. So I got inspired by a farm scene that was a metal cut, and made my own scene in fabric.
First I drew it in pencil. Then scanned it into the computer and tweaked it. Then took it to my church and used their digital projector to enlarge it and draw it onto freezer paper I taped to the wall. More refining of the shapes.
Then I cut the shapes out and ironed the freezer paper onto the fabric. Next, I cut around the shapes and
begin to use my mini iron and a lot of starch to turn the edges of the applique.
The design wall became a holder of shapes while I worked. There's a tree hanging upside down!
I found that a doll sized tea cup was perfect for holding the starch and the handle held the brush nicely in between uses! Below is a chicken applique shape. I took a video of me turning the edges of the tail under.
There was no way I was going to video turning the edges of the head and beak, but it came out quite nicely.
Then I began positioning the shapes onto the background fabric on the design wall. Below is an in-progress shot. This is when my camera died for a while, so I missed getting more pictures of the process.
Then I marked where the main shapes were and took it all apart so I could take it off the wall and remove the freezer paper and begin putting the top all together. I am glue basting with a water soluble glue and then machine appliqueing everything down. The top is nearly done, then I will begin the quilting, which is going to be challenging, but fun.
That's all the pics I have of the quilt from a few weeks ago. I'll save the rest for another post with current progress. But below is a shot of what's going on here....snow! Not much, but we're hoping (OK, the kids are hoping) for enough to go sledding in. That's my car just outside the window of my quiling studio.
Where ever you are, I hope you are warm enough, safe if travelling, and happy.
Your farm quilt looks like it's going to be pretty darn amazing. I look forward to seeing more.
ReplyDeleteWhoa! I so love black and white work. As a matter of fact, I'm working on TWO black and white quilts as we speak. Exciting!! :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a neat project!!! I'm sure your quilting will "knock it out of the park"!!!!!! Hugs......
ReplyDeleteWhat a tease! I cannot wait to see it finished!!
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