Martha Armstrong is a Stampin' Up teacher and demonstrator, and has been teaching classes on making quilt tops from die-cut appliques. Sometimes after a class, she brings her students over to me to do the quilting. They make the tops in several hours, with the appliques clinging to the background fabric with glue stick.
This one was made by Jean from Mechanicsville, Virginia.
Instead of stacking the center shape in the middle, she chose to offset it for a different look.
I took my quilting design from the swirly background fabric. The quilting is all swirls in a buttercup yellow thread.
The backing fabric is this pretty teal floral print that coordinates with the Moda Bake Shop "Layer Cakes" she used for the appliques.
The second quilt is like deja-vu all over again...almost. Tammy used the same Layer Cake fabric , but on a pale yellow background.
On this one, I decided to quilt in some flowers and leaves as well as swirls.
When I got to the very last row, I noticed that one of the flowers had lost its center applique. Here is another reason for the four inches of extra fabric that longarmers like to have on each side. I made a pattern from one of the centers and cut out a new one from a piece of the extra side fabric. This is the first time one of those glued pieces has "unstuck" itself and gotten lost!
The backing of Tammy's quilt is the same as Jean's, but in a different colorway. I used it to draw out some potential quilting motifs. In that way, the quilting really becomes part of the design.
In this case, I used a piece of Golden Threads tracing paper and drew freehand shapes. You could also trace the shapes directly. Caution: use washable markers if you plan to keep the "style sheet" on the quilt top as a reference while you work. Or, if the design is complicated, you can stitch right through the paper. I have done that sometimes when quilting animals or other designs from Laura Lee Fritz' book, 250 Continuous Line Quilting Designs. I prefer to just stitch freehand so I don't have to pick out all the little bits of paper! Here is an example of a quilt that I stitched through the tracing paper.
1 comment:
I think your quilting is very skilled and beautiful!!
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