Category — applique

I have a love/hate relationship with Minkee — but mostly love! Leslie brought two quilts recently that both have Minkee involved. One of the quilts had a Minkee backing, and the other quilt featured Minkee on the front for applique fabrics.

Minkee can be tricky to work with on a longarm machine. Keeping the stretch parallel to the rollers will help to keep the stretchiness of a wild Minkee backing  tamed. Also, keeping the side clamps very loose —- so loose that you will think that the quilt top looks rather baggy —- will also help you to avoid having the backing shrink up when you remove the quilt from the machine. The most important tip I like to pass along is: REMEMBER NOT TO ROLL THE QUILT TOO TIGHTLY.  If that’s the only tip you remember, you will avoid a lot of headaches.

Backings pieced from Minkee should be avoided if possible. Because of the thickness of the Minkee, the seam on the backing can show through to the front of the quilt. Also, it’s a bit difficult to piece Minkee without having it slide around, causing a backing that looks square on the table to look like this on the machine:

If this backing had been pieced out of any other fabric but Minkee, I would have removed it from the machine and done the piecing over. As it was, I held my breath and let the extra fabric be absorbed by the dense snowflakes that would be quilted on it.

If you have any frustrations during the process of working with Minkee, just slide your hand across the wonderful fabric and you will be guaranteed to smile!

If you would like to experiment with a little touch of Minkee, but don’t want to use it for the entire quilt, consider using it for your appliqué fabric. Leslie brought over a quilt that had adorable elephants appliquéd on it, and she used various pieces of Minkee as the appliqué fabric. She used flat Minkee, striped, nubby… a little bit over everything. The elephants look so cute with the little bows on their heads!

There’s nothing better than having someone come to pick up her quilt, and having her give me a giant hug!  Karen worked hard on this adorable quilt for her little grand-daughter, and it was worth every minute.  Her piecing is perfect, the applique is precise and smooth, and the finished project is wonderful!

Karen wanted to have a quilting design that reflected something to go along with the puppy theme. We chose a design from Vickie Maleski that has small bones and paw prints. She requested that there be no quilting on the puppy appliques that surround the outer border.

All the quilting was done to surround the puppys, but not stitch over them. Karen is deciding if she would like to leave the puppys unquilted (as shown in the original pattern), or if she would like to add some hand quilting to them.  The quilt is adorable just as it is, but the nice thing about adding hand-quilting is that she can add it at a later date, even after the quilt has been laundered numerous times. Now that’s flexibility!

The Baby’s Bow Wow Blankie  pattern was created by Bonnie Sullivan of All Through the Night Folk Art Designs, and is available by clicking here.  Be sure to click on the pictures below to see more of Karen’s quilt project!

Nine elegant designs, combining the best of applique and embroidery. There are so many possibilities with these designs! Table cloths, napkins, placemats, sweatshirts, quilts, sweaters, cookie tins, gift boxes and tags, pillows…….. These designs were featured in the November/December 2006 issue of Designs in Machine Embroidery Magazine. To order these designs as a collection, click here.  Each design is available as a single, and you can order  here.

Below are actual stitch-outs of the designs — you click click on each image to see a larger picture.

Welcome to our own little island get-away‚ Under the Sea! This collection of eight wonderful sea creatures would love to swim into your life. Each applique fits in a five by seven hoop. To purchase this collection, click here.

The Snowybears are here to have some winter fun with you! Machine embroidery, applique, and a gentle fur texture to their coats! Easy enough for a beginner, and fun for the entire winter! To order these designs, click here.

These five adorable designs are for those with an embroidery machine who love a touch of applique. To order these five designs for a very special price, click here. Click on each design t0 see the full picture. All designs were created for the 5 x 7 hoop, but the tiny turkey will fit in the 4×4 hoop.

….. use paper plates!”

That’s the name of the most recent quilt from a fantastic artist Kim Montagnese. This quilt is a new twist on the old favorite Broken Dishes.  Kim added lots of fun to this quilt pattern with a new method of applique, rubber stamping, and even silverware! My favorite part is the expression stamped on the quilt top that says “You can lead me to the kitchen, but you can’t make me cook”.  That’s fits me perfectly!

Kim wanted “fun” quilting on this one! Here are some pictures:

There’s a cute story about what happened when Kim was working on this quilt over at her blog Colorz My World. She had a little “boo boo” that needed a band-aid — literally!

Kim sells her patterns, and teaches fun classes on making them. You can reach her by sending an email to Kim Montagnese at Montagnese@oh.rr.com.

The Chubby Bees have come to visit, and they just LOVE little babies! This collection of designs features just a touch of applique, making them simple — and fun! These designs are a joy to stitch, and will keep you — and baby! — smiling all day long! To purchase this collection, click here.

These designs combine the best of applique and embroidery! Fast and fun, these are sized for the 5×7 hoop. You can use them on blue jeans and jackets, curtains, towels, etc. Click on each picture below to see the details of the actual stitch-outs. To purchase these designs as a collection of six designs, click here.  To purchase any of these designs individually, click here.

Romantic pinwheels and hand applique

The quilt was made possible with a lot of help from my friends on my Candy Apple Quilts Yahoo group. I asked for everyone to send a 6-inch strip of floral fabric to me so I could have lots of variety. The response was overwhelming! Here are just some of the fabrics that I received:

Lots of florals!

Shades of green for the leaves

I was intrigued with finding a faster way to create all of the half-square triangles that would be needed for the center section, and for the border. Using a Gammill machine with a Statler Stitcher enabled me to do most of the work with the computer! I put a solid white fabric on the machine first. Then, I placed a strip of floral fabric right side down on the white fabric with a pin at each end to hold it in place. Using the computer, I set up all of the sewing for the half square triangles.I then cut the strips apart and ironed the pieces open to create all of the pieces I needed for the pinwheels.

When all of the pinwheels were complete, it didn’t take long to sew them together into the center portion of the quilt.

Each of the fabric strips right sides together

From the various green fabrics, I cut all of the leaves for the appliqued border. All of the applique was done by hand.

Back to the quilting machine with more white fabric, and a pretty lime green. All of the half square triangles were laid out in advance, and sewn row after row, non-stop.

After cutting the rows and blocks apart, I had all of the half square triangles that I needed for the outer border of the quilt!

The only job left was to measure the applique borders and the outer borders, and apply them. I added the binding, sprinkled a few yo-yos on for fun, and it’s done! Click on the images below to see the full-sized pictures.

This pattern for the quilt is available from McCall’s Magazine. For the half square triangle Statler pattern, please email Gary and Linda Schmitz at ewok335@centurytel.net, or check their web site for patterns.