Machine Applique

A week or so after I finished the hand-stitched applique pillow, I made this two-foot square wall quilt for my bathroom. The colors match my shower curtain and towels, and the dragonflies I appliqued on this quilt were traced from the dragonflies on my shower curtain. I had such fun making this quilt over Labor Day weekend. I never realized you could make a whole quilt in one weekend. Granted, it is a very small quilt! But still...

I tried my hand at machine appliqueing the two dragonflies on this quilt. You set your sewing machine to do a very tight zigzag stitch, and it looks like a satin stitch all around the edge of the dragonflies. I practiced on a small dragonfly on scrap fabric first, and then I just went for it. I was a little fearful of messing up my quilt, but the stitching went fine. I dressed it up by adding some irridescent bugle beads to the wings of the dragonflies, and randomly added some assorted seed beads around the perimeter of the quilt as I hand quilted it. This was lots of fun, and I love the colors!

Learning to Applique

I have been taking another break from paper crafting to do some more quilting. I decided to try my hand at some applique. I saw this bird pillow in a quilt magazine and decided to see if I could do this. I found out there are several different types of applique, and many variations on those types. This pillow uses a hand sewing method, sometimes called a slip stitch or blind stitch, where you fold under the edges of each cut out piece and sew it to the background fabric so that the stitches don't show on the front. I found it tedious to first trace the pattern from the magazine onto freezer paper, then cut out the shapes, then place the shapes on fabric and trace around them again, and then cut out each shape from the fabric, leaving an extra quarter inch all the way around to be sewn under later. But, I did enjoy making this pillow overall, and I like the way it looks on my bed. Eventually I'll be putting a new quilt on my bed (first I have to hand quilt it, very time consuming!), and this pillow will match the colors in that quilt better. I also plan to use more of the pink and green paisley fabric to make dresser scarves in the bedroom, so it will all tie in together nicely.