I have procrastinated too long about showing some of the quilts and embroideries I have stitched over the last 30 years. I am now rectifying this and hope to add to my journal as quilts and creations are gradually completed. I have so many unfinished projects many of these used for teaching purposes. I have decided that after the last few years during which I have been unable to stitch as much as previously it is time to try and finish as many as possible.
I hope that you enjoy looking at some of my creations as I work through this pile! It may take some time.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Applique and quilt

Applique in the hoop
 This quilt started out as a digitising lesson for Otto & Pennys Sewing Centre and the Embroidery Forum.  The idea was to show how to digitise free motion applique.  We followed that lesson with one showing how one could make the quilt and preview it using the Quilter part of Designer 6 software.
When I decided to make the quilt, I played around with lots of blocks but finally decided to make my own five patch chain block leaving me a large alternate block for the applique flowers.  I had intended to applique flowers in all of the blocks, but decided that a quilting design would be much better and make the quilt "lighter".   The blocks were pieced and borders added.  I then quilted all of the straight line quilting through the middle of the small blocks, around the red border and finished with hooped quilting in the print border. I then finished off the edges with piped binding.  Next step was to hoop each plain block using the Bernina jumbo hoop.  The applique designs were surrounded by stipple quilting which was stitched before the applique but in the same embroidery file.  The border designs did not include the stippling and this was stitched after the applique was finished. 
I finally decided that there needed to be more straight line quilting and I think that the closeups will show this, including a thread I hadn't noticed until I uploaded that particular photo.
A quick note - I used an assortment of batik fabrics for this quilt - approximately 20 greens and yellows with 40+ oranges and reds for the flowers.

Alternate Block quilting which echos the applique design.
Closeup of the border applique designed to fit the edge triangles

Block applique

Corner applique
I hope you like this quilt.
Chris
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2 comments:

  1. ~ Kim ~Wednesday, June 13, 2012

    The flowers are so pretty. Are they finished by machine? It looks like it takes a long time to do. It's veyr beautiful. Well done.

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    Replies
    1. ChrisBWednesday, June 13, 2012

      Hi Kim, all of the applique was stitched "in the hoop" the stitching also being part of the quilting at the same time.
      Whilst it seemed to take a long term if I actually counted the hours it took stitching it was not a long process bearing in mind that most of the applique was also quilting.
      Chris

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