Laura Wasilowski - Fanciful Stitches, Colorful Quilts: 11 Easy Appliqué Projects to Embroider by Hand

Text copyright 2011 by Laura Wasilowski

Artwork copyright 2011 by C&T Publishing, Inc.

Publisher: Amy Marson

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Editor: Lynn Koolish

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Published by C&T Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 1456, Lafayette, CA 94549

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wasilowski, Laura, 1952

Fanciful stitches, colorful quilts : 11 easy appliqu projects to embroider by hand / Laura Wasilowski.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-60705-020-9 (soft cover)

1. Quilting--Patterns. 2. Appliqu--Patterns. 3. Embroidery--Patterns. I. Title.

TT835.W33736 2011

746.46041--dc22

2010021404

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my mother, Penelope, who encouraged my love of fabric and embroidery.

Thank you to the C&T Publishing staff for creating beautiful books and especially to my patient editor, Lynn Koolish. A special thanks to all the embroiderers out there who create exciting artwork and give me great delight.

NICE NEIGHBORHOOD #2

(before stitching)

NICE NEIGHBORHOOD #2

14 14 (after stitching)
by Laura Wasilowski

One little embroidery stitch on a quilt brings it to life! Simple hand stitches enhance fabric surfaces by adding color, texture, pattern, definition, and excitement. Small fused art quilts especially benefit from hand stitchery. Stitches attract the eye and entice the viewer to look more closely. And you will soon find that the act of stitching also seduces the stitcher.

Fused fabrics make the construction of our project quilts a snap, leaving time for the fine art of stitching. Learn about the fusing process and an easy pattern transfer process Ive developed in Fuse before Stitching ().

Couching Thread / Hidden Needle () tells you about stitching tools, weights of thread, and how to select and place stitches on the quilts. There are also diagrams of the various embroidery stitches used in each projects stitch plan.

Youll find the shapes for creating your quilts in Patterns for Stitch-the-House-Down Quilts (). Batting and a stiff interfacing, such as C&Ts Timtex or fast2fuse, offer a firm support and can give the quilt a curvy edge. No need for a hanging sleeve or machine stitching!

I hope you enjoy the art of adding embroidery stitches to your work as much as I do. May this book take your artwork from flat to fabulous!

PRETTY PLANET #2, 11 11

The perfect canvas for hand stitching is an art quilt made with fused fabric. Fusible web is a dry glue transferred or fused to fabric with the heat of an iron. After cutting fused fabric into shapes, you iron the shapes onto other fabrics to create compositions. A simple pattern transfer process using the project patterns makes cutting these shapes fast and easy. A construction plan for each quilt tells you the order of placement for those shapes. Once the quilt top is made, it is steam set to batting and ready for hand stitching.

Select a brand of fusible web that is easy to hand stitch through, such as paperbacked Wonder Under #805, Bondaweb, or Soft Fuse. For lightweight silks, I suggest Mistyfuse.

Hand-dyed and batik fabrics work best for raw-edged fused quilts, as the color penetrates all the way through the fabric. (Fused elements from printed fabrics with a white back will show a white edge.) Avoid fabrics with permanent press or other finishes; they may not adhere well. Fabrics with higher thread counts fray less when cut.

Some battings have a scrim, or network of glue or fibers to hold the batt together. Test the batting before using it to determine the scrim side of the batt: Fuse a 6 fabric square to a scrap piece of batting. If the fabric ripples, it is the scrim side of the batt. Fuse your quilt top to the other side (non-scrim) of the batting.

TIP

Some batting will beard or pull through to the top of the quilt when you stitch. Test the batting before applying it to your quilt top.

Directions come with the fusible web, but here are the basics for applying fusible web to the fabric. The iron must be up to temperature (cotton setting) and