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Creating Movement with Fabric Art Projects – Part 2 – How to Use Fabric

September 17, 2019September 13, 2019 by admin

Welcome back to our blog series on creating movement with fabric art. Last week we talked about the principles of creating motion in fabric art. We also talked about why we have to have movement in order for it to be fabric art (as opposed to a traditional quilt).

I hope that I’ve been helpful in opening your eyes to one of my favorite things.

And I also hope that you’re feeling encouraged and excited about starting to create movement with fabric art.

As I mentioned in my last blog, there are three necessary elements to create movement – fabric, thread, and accessories. With those three simple, beautiful items, you can make any item flow, move, and bewitch the eye.

These fabrics are your canvas, your brushes, and your paints. Enjoy!

This week, I want to talk about using the biggest of those three mediums: fabric.

Creating Movement with Fabric

This is the biggest choice you have to make for any project – because it’s the biggest part. It also sets the tone:

Dark and broody…
Light and sunny…
Day or night…
What century…
Fun and whimsical…
Beautiful and inspirational…
Etc.

Creating Movement with Fabric – Colors

Color choice is everything in fabric art.

This goes for your thread and accessories as well, of course, but the fabric is the determining factor – always.

Movement in fabric is dictated by:

The colors you use
The way you move between them – think of a rainbow
And the patterns printed on the fabric itself.

When you go to a quilt store you will see whole shelves of the same color – like green – in 50 different shades and patterns. And any one of those shades and shapes of green could be right in the right project.

You have to make the right choice. Here’s the easiest way to do it.

Lay out your choices on the cutting table next to each other, stand back and look carefully at how they go together.

If you want to draw the eye subtly and gently, use different shades of the same color scheme from light to dark.

If you want to accomplish a visual punch to the brain, use bright, highly contrasting colors.

However, even a visual punch – such as a Bargello pattern – employs light-to-dark shades of the same color scheme to achieve its effect. For my ‘Bargello Strawberry’ table topper we used 5 different shades of red from light to dark.

The varying shades were very distinctive when we laid them out side by side at the quilt store, but when they were sewn into 1” squares it became very hard to tell them apart. What you see is a strawberry that moves from light-to-dark so subtly that it appears mottled – exactly like a real one.

Take the time – or make the time – to think about the effect you want from your finished project.

If you make a mistake in a color combination, you will usually be able to see it very quickly – as I did when I used blue in my wedding ring quilt. The first set that I put together just screamed at me, so I tore it apart and chose a different fabric.

Consider Shadows in Your Fabric Choices

We often don’t think about shadows in real life. But shadows are the very definition of what we see. Shadows:

Give depth to color
Layers to scenery
And impact to moments

Most importantly, shadows create 3-D effects that enhances your background, makes the visual much more realistic, and adds a great deal of interest. Shadows should be added whenever you want to make something appear deeper or to show the way the light is moving.

If you’re creating a stone wall, for instance, and using a grey mottled fabric for the stones, then you need to deepen the scene. You can do this by adding fabric strips of either darker grey or black strips. This will create the 3-D effect you need.

Experiment with the width of the “shadow” so that you achieve the right effect without overwhelming the main element.

Another way to achieve shadows with fabrics is to use a darker shade in a strip-pieced pattern. I especially like to do this with crazy quilts, strip quilts, and pinwheels.

I also like to look at photographs and then try to model my shadow effects after them.

Pay Attention to Design and Pattern

The other way to create movement with fabric is to use fabric printed with many different designs.

Having just finished my ‘Ocean Maidens’ quilt, I’ve spent a lot of time gazing at fabric with swirls (waves), bubbles (water), dots (floaty organic material), and leaves (ocean flora and fauna).

The entire quilt appears to move, especially as we moved the fabric from light through dark to simulate the ocean from top to bottom.

If I had chosen the exact same color scheme but in plain fabrics only, my ‘ocean’ would just lay there, boring and dead. So always plan ahead and know what effect you want to achieve before you lay out one cent or make your first cut.

Handing holding cash and coin money over purple and pink quilting fabrics sewing within your means illustration

How to Save Money & Avoide Mistakes

As always, I’ve got a few items on my “don’t” list, as well. Knowing what not to do, what not to choose, and why not will go a long way in saving you time and money.

“Don’t” Tip #1

Unless you absolutely have to, don’t buy plain fabric.

You’ll really maximize your moneys’ worth by purchasing multi-colored fabric or fabric that is printed with a design in the same color scheme.

The multi-colored fabric allows you to bring in any other color that’s also printed on the main fabric. If you have a gold-based fabric with green & orange swirls on it, then you can bring in green and orange fabrics and they will all run together – which is the exact subtle effect we’re looking for.

Fabric that is printed with a design – such as bubbles – will often use the same color scheme from light-to-dark, which allows you to bring in each of these shades. This simple trick moves color through your project and moves your eyes to follow it, thus creating movement with fabric.

Simple!

“Don’t” Tip #2

Try not to buy on a whim, ever. If you’re super-attracted to a fabric, chances are you already have something similar.

Always go through your stash before you head for the quilt store to buy fabric for a new project.

Large plastic tub full of color-themed grey and silver fabric

If your stash is anything like mine, you can often find all the fabrics you need right at home without investing a cent. Remember, most of the time you’ll only be using a quarter yard of any one color in any project – if that – so you don’t need an entire building to stash your stash.

If you don’t have the exact right color:

Take your project and the fabrics you have already chosen from your stash to the quilt store
Mix and match carefully
Buy only what you need.

You’ll save a lot of money this way and keep your stash under control at the same time.

“Don’t” Tip #3

Don’t allow yourself to be bullied into fabric choices that you loathe just because it’s what’s hip or modern. Or even if it’s called for in the pattern.

Personally, I have to love the colors of the fabric I’m working with or my dislike shows in the finished piece. Besides that, I get no joy out of creating it and life is way too short to spend time on things that you don’t like.

I absolutely loathe the ‘modern’ color combination of pale, washed out teal and that anemic brown you see everywhere and I refuse to spend one cent in buying those color schemes.

As I’ve said before, autumn is my favorite season so I have a great many of those fabrics in my stash. I also love the jewel tones of purple, turquoise and jade – so I have a lot of that.

Different colors – whole new art set

It’s amazing how many different places you can use these colors.

And often patterns, even traditional patterns, don’t need to have the exact fabrics.

When I did my one and only Jinny Beyer quilt I used the fabric supplied in the kit – because I loved those colors. Later I saw a quilt at the quilt store that used shades of purple, green, and turquoise instead of pinks, reds, and purples.

The effect was, and almost always is, equally stunning.

These are the exact same pattern, a Princess YellowBelly original, but the colors are totally different…

However you go about creating movement with fabric, remember, it’s about the story. You don’t want your quilt to sit there. You want it to move people through the context, to fold in light and shadow, emotion and love.

Next week we’ll finish out this blog series by talking about the other two mediums used in creating movement with fabric art; thread and accessories.

Until then, please consider signing up for our newsletter. It’s quick, easy, and FREE! You’ll receive tips, best products, some personal updates, and more.

How to Create Movement in Fabric Art Quilts & Projects – Part 1

September 17, 2019September 3, 2019 by admin

I like to self-identify as a fabric artist rather than a quilter. Which gets a lot of puzzled smiles, quietly raised eyebrows, and a question: “What’s the difference between a fabric artist and a quilter?”

After all, a traditional quilter creates…a quilt. A fabric artist creates…a quilt. The differences may seem small, but they’re there, trust me.

The difference is in intent and outcome.

Ever dangle your legs over a stream? Then let’s do it on fabric!

Do you want to create a quilt that is beautifully sewn, has all its points matching perfectly and wins a blue ribbon at the local quilt show?

Or do you want to tell a unique story that shows passion, humor, and beauty?

Fabric art isn’t so much about traditionalism and winning blue ribbons at fairs. Although as Isaac Newton famously said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

We like to embrace the traditional beauty and influences, but build on it.

So, if you intend to create a story, you may use traditional techniques – but achieve an entirely different outcome.

Defining Fabric Art by Creating Movement

The fabric art that we create is mostly movement and accessories. I spoke about the accessory angle in my Bling Blog, and I touched on creating movement in my Backgrounds First blog but I want to go into it in more depth here.

Just to clarify; when we say we’re creating movement, we don’t mean physical movement.

What we’re referring to is any aspect of a quilt that draws your eye from one section to another. I, for one, much prefer to view a project that tells a story and pulls you in, inviting you to become a part of the conversation, rather than a beautifully crafted, point-perfect masterpiece.

Here we have two moving elements; water, which always moves, and the butterflies. There’s a suggestion of potential movement from the frog – but that creates tension rather than movement.

You may sense a little bitterness here towards what I like to refer to as the ‘Quilt Nazis.’ If you’ve gone to a quilt store of fair where everything runs on rules, you know what I mean.

Or maybe it’s even a little bit of quilter’s envy, since many great traditionalist quilters achieve levels of mastery that I can only envy.

But what it really is, is a superior attitude on my part. I, like many human beings, like looking down at the poor quilting robots trapped in their “this-is-the-pattern-and-I-have-to-follow-it-religiously” rut.

Genesis of My Quilting Rebellion

It started for me way back in the day when I made my kids’ first baby quilts.

I’ve got a real low boredom threshold. So rather than just make a quilt with blocks of the same Scotty dogs or bunny rabbits, I decided that I had to enliven things. I did this by adding variety:

Different fabrics for each block
Colored ribbons
Yarn embellishments
Different colored threads
And squishy bunny tails

These were a great hit with my babies, so when they were ready for regular beds, I made them each a twin quilt.

Instead of sewing a basic Sunbonnet Sue or Suspender Sam quilt, I went to Walmart. And there I found all the little girl/boy appliques they had and added one to each block.

Each block of these early quilts featured a quaint little cutout engaged in a different activity.

A Sunbonnet Sue may be seen picking flowers or flying balloons, and in my son’s quilt a Suspender Sam could be driving tractors or playing with a dog. I knew this was the way to go when I overheard Suzanna telling her siblings a story about what was happening in the quilt.

After that I explored the whole crazy quilt genre which I liked exceedingly because of all the different fabrics and colors and varying angles they’re sewn at.

When everyone I knew or was related to – and their dog – had a quilt from me, I started looking around for something different to create and gradually ended up where I am now. Just let me say that the fabric art I create and sew is not that technically difficult.

What it can be, however, is extremely creative and often time consuming.

To the way my mind works though, it’s a perfect fit. And for a project to “fit” for me it has to move and say something. Here is how I go about creating movement and stories in my fabric art.

Critical Questions to Ask Before Creating Movement in Fabric Art

Is my character moving or is it the background?

I have discovered that it is both too difficult and too time consuming to try to accomplish both in the same panel. Plus its way too complicated and actually accomplishes the opposite of drawing a viewer in.

Do one or the other, but not both.

In my ‘Christmas Delivery’ panel the unicorn is standing still; it’s the fairies that are moving. In my ‘Coral Reef Panel’ the fish are moving so much that you don’t really notice the water.

As an aside, water, air, and fire are background elements that break the general rule. In Coral Reef the water’s moving, but it’s so subtle that your mind sees it and dismisses it because what’s going on in the foreground is just so interesting.

Once you’ve got your what, it’s time to move on to creating movement with non-moving materials.

What materials will accomplish movement?

Execution matters.

If it’s your background that will be moving, you have 3 options – fabric, thread and accessories.

If it’s the character that’s moving you have the same 3 options, but to these you can also add batting, foam, appliques, and specialized quilting techniques.

We’ll talk about these elements next week in the middle installment of this article series.

Hey, it’s movement. And creating movement is the very basis of fabric art – it can’t be talked about in just a few short lines. OK, a few long lines, but still! That’s why we’re here.

In the meantime, please sign up for our FREE newsletter. We’ve got some very exciting developments coming up in the next few months, and we can’t wait to share each update with you personally.

Read the Next Article:

Creating Movement with Fabric Art Projects – Part 2 – How to Use Fabric

Creating Movement with Fabric Art Quilts & Projects – Part 3 – Thread & Accessories

The Bling Blog – Create More Beautiful Quilts with Accessories

July 2, 2019July 2, 2019 by admin

Just like a lady getting ready for a date, accessories really help amp an already beautiful quilt into the realm of fabric art. When a woman wants to feel really beautiful and confident and draw attention to herself, out comes all the beauty accouterments from makeup to jewelry.

And it works!!! Of course it does or we wouldn’t bother.

Elevate a project from ordinary to extraordinary with a few easy bling tricks

It’s also really helpful if the woman underneath the bling has a beautiful soul as well, because then the bling enhances her true beauty rather than working to disguise what’s missing.

This is the same principle we use when we decide how to accessorize our fabric art projects. In order for bling to work in fabric art the real beauty should already exist in the quilt itself. You achieve this by:

Choosing the best quality fabric you can afford
Paying close attention to colors, thread, patterns, stitching, etc.
Using the best possible quilting techniques
Loving your project (it really does show, even though there’s no way to pin this quality down with a how-to!)

Once all of that is in place and done, then you can start having some real fun with all the bling. Here are some of the things I use quite regularly to help my fabric art POP.

Appliques

Appliques are either shaped pieces of fabric or machine embroidered shapes that can be sewn over the front of any fabric from clothes to potholders to quilts. Appliques are by far the easiest and fastest way to add interest to any beautiful quilt project.

You can buy the embroidery patch appliques – especially for kids and babies – at any arts and crafts store, or Walmart, and they’re really cute and adorable.

Years ago, when my son was a little boy I made a Suspender Sam quilt for him and in each square I put in a store-bought little boy applique. It was absolutely adorable and Aram wore that quilt out over years of little-boy hard-loving.

Or, you can make your own.

This technique is slightly more involved and advanced than store-bought appliques, but it gives you a much greater range of options. I’ve come a long way since the Suspender Sam quilt, and now I make most of my own appliques.

To do this simply pick an element that you want to applique, like birds, soft-fuse them, fussy cut them and then stitch onto your project.

Fussy cutting is nothing more than cutting out the shape you want to applique. I give a detailed list of instructions on how to do this in my “How to Applique Fabric Art Quilts with Confidence” blog.

My 2 best examples of this are my Tropical Reef panel, in which I used almost 200 appliques – I might have gone a little bit crazy there – and my Dragon quilt.

HINT: Make sure you have really sharp scissors, especially little ones that are sharp at the tips. This really helps to get those little tiny shapes like noses and fingers sharply cut.

Fabric Flowers

Many people think of fake flower bouquets as tacky and so did I for many years. Then they started making them out of silk, and what a tremendous innovation that was. Just not for setting up as a bouquet, because the leaves get super-dusty, and then you’re back to tacky.

Where I love to use silk flowers and leaves is on my landscape wall hangings and beautiful quilts.

Not only are they soft and easily sewn, they are incredibly life-like, and I figure, why go to all the trouble of cutting out tiny little pieces of fabric and appliqueing them, when you can just applique a silk flower?

Of course, I soft-fuse all of my flowers and leaves first because sewing one of these without it will just cause it to tear and fray.

This is one of the articles I’ll get to eventually, but for now here’s the bird’s eye how-to on fabric flowers and leaves.

First, strip all the stems and veins off of your silk flowers and leaves. These are made of plastic and don’t work on fabric. Just pull gently but firmly, and the stems and veins usually strip away just fine. Plus, it takes a lot less room to store these than if you left them the way they come from the store.

Next cut out a piece of soft-fuse approximately 12 inches square. This is a workable size.

Now lay it paper side down on your ironing board and then lay your flowers and leaves on the rough, upper side. Lay these down right-side-up and as close together as possible without overlapping them.

Finally place a piece of wax paper over all and press with a hot iron.

Hold the iron down approximately 30 seconds longer than you would on regular fabric so that the heat can penetrate all the way through the thicker leaves.

Wait till completely cool and then peel off the wax paper and the paper backing. Do this carefully so the soft-fuse will not lift away from the leaves – it usually doesn’t but now and then….

Use a sharp-tipped scissor to trim any Soft-fuse excess from between petals, etc. and then position your flowers and leaves on your project right-side-up and press.

I mostly stitch these down with a narrow blanket stitch and voila – a beautiful, life-like applique! Silk flowers are fairly cheap and affordable, and are available in a wide variety of stores.

Trims

By trims I mean ribbons, lace, rickrack, braids, ropes, etc. Basically anything that comes wrapped around a little cardboard spool.

Your options here are almost endless and there’s always something new.

Don’t forget to check out the DIY wedding decoration aisles at arts and crafts stores like Hobby Lobby and Michaels – they have tons of stuff as well.

I’ve used things that weren’t really meant to go with fabric, like raffia string, faux paper grass, and feathers as trims as well – just be careful because you’ll never be able to wash the finished quilt.

Underwater corral reef - very busy example of a background in one of our landscape quilt designs

A word of caution here – you can overdo trims.

Trims should be used to enhance certain design features and to draw the eye to things you want noticed on your already beautiful quilt. This is especially true of the bling trims – the shiny sparkly ones.

Don’t over-use these. If you look at my Coral Reef panel, you’ll see that I put on almost 200 appliques but I only used the bling trim in 4 places.

That’s because bling trim can become overwhelming. I also used bright multi-colored thread-like trim as sea grass in 2 places, which really helps to give the illusion of the sea but you don’t really notice it at first because it’s not shiny.

So by all means BLING, but with discretion.

A beautiful – if basic – concept
Add some ribbon and a delicate touch of matching bling
And this beautiful quilt is complete in romantic miniature

Trims are also great for covering up mistakes or stuff that just doesn’t look the way you thought it would.

It’s the seamstress’s version of sweeping something under the rug and you should not be surprised by how often I do this. A great way to use sparkly trims is to wait until the end of the project, as you’ll then know what needs to be hidden.

Buttons & Beads

I LOVE these!!! They come in almost every color and shape imaginable, are relatively cheap and can be made to be almost anything you want.

Buttons & beads are hard to corral – learn how to do it easier

Common ways to use buttons and beads to enhance landscapes panels and beautiful quilts include:

Buttons make perfect centers for fabric flowers (since once you remove the plastic supports these flowers just have a little hole in the middle.)
Buttons can represent the sun
Depending upon their shape beads can be
- Rocks
- Shells
- Trees
- Windows
- Cobbled streets
- Etc.

Just anything your imagination can concoct!

Buttons are usually more expensive because they are sold by the card, or little packages with 6-8 buttons for the cheaper ones.

Beads now – I have found large packages of them at Hobby Lobby that are very cost effective and in any combination you like. Beads also often come in themed packages – amber and red, blue and turquoise, shells and pearls, etc. This is my favorite way to quickly fill up some gaps on a mid-to-large sized project.

NOTE: Buttons and beads need to be sewn down very tightly to stand up to the years they’ll be expected to do duty on your amazing fabric art project.

To make sure a button or bead will stay sewn on, use double thread in your needle. Then sew through at least 5 times to make sure it’s tight.

A little trick here – before you go down the last time, slide your needle between your button/bead and your fabric and wrap your thread around the existing thread about 3 times (tightly) and then go down to the back of your fabric.

Tie off by threading your needle through a loop of your thread twice instead of just once to make your knot and do this twice so that your knot will never come undone.

If my button is quite heavy or bulky I also use fabric glue behind the button and also put a dab on the knot at the back. It dries clear and invisible and really reassures that that bling won’t come off.

This is especially important if you have small children around. Kids will pull on lumpy, shiny things, and if they get them loose, they’ll put them in their mouths.

Other Stuff

These are things that don’t fit in any category…because they’re not actually made to be sewn onto fabric – but I do it anyway.

For example, as I was perusing the DIY wedding aisles at Hobby Lobby, I came across these silver leaves that are meant to be used in bouquets. They’re not solid – just the outside shape and veins with some curlicues here and there, all in silver and in different sizes.

I stood there and looked at them for a while because I was very drawn to them, and eventually they talked to me and told me they wanted to be used as fairy wings. So they will be!

Into the “other stuff” category you could also place jingle bells, feathers, decorations for any holiday and reclaimed jewelry or hardware.

I used the glass flower off of one of Suzanna’s old hair tighties as the center of my shamrock table topper, and I’m using a belt buckle as a tie for my silver rope on my mermaid quilt (coming soon).

So just look around and keep your imagination wide open.

Thread

You might not think of thread as an accessory or a bling-up aid.

The truth is, however, thread and how you apply it, can make a HUGE difference to the finished look of your project. There are hundreds of colors out there for you to choose from and many different types.

If these colors aren’t blinged-up accessories, then I don’t know what is!

The ones I use most often for bling are the metallics, variegated, crochet and embroidery threads.

Once again, take a look at your project and see if there’s any element that can be enhanced or brought out by thread. You can make it quite heavy as in a satin stitch, or barely there.

In my mermaid quilt, I’m using a variegated metallic thread to sew in waves, but only in a single line of straight stitching. The sparkly edges on my “waves” won’t jump out at you, but they’ll be there, gently adding sparkle and movement.

I’ve just purchased a pack of glow-in-the-dark thread and am trying to think of a project where they could really shine – pun intended.

And don’t forget yarns. They come in a plethora of colors – even variegated and can be used almost anywhere. You can’t sew most through your machine, but you can stitch them down with a zigzag like some kind of super-skinny trim.

Chiffons

Here comes the bride…

Chiffons, are those see through, very fine netting material you can find in most fabric stores. They come in all colors, many different shades of the same color, and many of them have sparkles and designs on them.

They can also be called organza fabric, and some are just netting – most chiffon and organza is opaque with no actual holes.

Chiffons are most often used for fancy dresses like prom, wedding, and evening dresses, but they make nifty highlights for your projects.

I most often use them when I want something to appear mystically magical, or to blur images.

I used pink sparkle chiffon on my main mermaid’s tail, and it made that beautiful design into magic.
I’m planning on using different colored chiffons on all the rest of the mermaids on the quilt as well.
I used a clear sparkle chiffon to cover my Christmas stars.

You don’t need a lot of chiffon to pack a pretty gentle punch. Also, Suzanna has a fabric flower-making kit (Kanzashi) and we use those forms to make chiffon flowers that we add to our projects as well.

Lights

I have personally never used lights on a project before but, like me, you have probably seen those Christmas kits that include lights.

I really like the look so Suzanna and I spent quite a bit of time on the Internet looking for them, but could find none anywhere. We eventually purchased a set of 6 different colored strings of fairy lights that I want to use in a number of different projects.

Since I was having a hard time figuring out how to attach them to my projects, I took my projects and the lights to our local quilt store and asked the ladies for their ideas – and I got them!

I haven’t done it yet, though, so I have no steps or tips. Watch for upcoming articles, hopefully.

Bling it Up – Create More Beautiful Quilts

In conclusion, don’t be afraid to use unorthodox objects for your projects as well as the “normal” things you can find in the fabric section.

Most times it’ll be a combination of tradition and radical, normality and uniqueness, that creates a finished effect that dazzles and reflects some type of realism. Better to create a beautiful quilt that shines too much than a quilt that doesn’t shine at all.

Don’t be afraid to experiment, and definitely don’t be afraid to try new things.

You may have a few wrecks along the way, but that’s half the fun – and you can always submit the tales of wow and disaster to our Seam Ripper Championships.

Have fun and dazzle us all!

Beating Your Batting Average or How to Use Quilt Batting

June 27, 2019June 21, 2019 by admin

Quilt batting is one of those things that are invisible when a project is finished and so it’s human nature to deem it of less importance than the front of the project. Just like quilt backing, another so-called “secondary” concern which is actually very important.

We often ask the wrong question, “Why bother spending time on something no one sees?”

Instead of asking, “I want my quilt to be the best it can be, and so I need to know how to use quilt batting to its best effect in my work of art.”

Your quilt sandwich – neat & clean

However, quilt batting matters greatly because it’s that foundation thing again – if you don’t get your foundation right the whole thing goes to rack and ruin very quickly. Quilt backings and battings are MAJOR foundations, so you need to consider your batting choices. And there are a lot of choices out there!

Like everything else in quilting there is no one right answer because quilting is an artistic endeavor and not an exact science – which is very lucky for me since I had no luck with the sciences in school.

How to Make the Best Product Choice when Selecting Quilt Batting

Quilting foam was used to make this simple panel pop up and shade into realistic, 3 dimensional layers

What kind of batting you decide to use in your project depends on the purpose of your project. Here are the purposes I consider. Do you want your finished quilt to be:

Nicely functional
A showpiece
A competition entry
Decorative or shaped piece
A gift
An heirloom

Like everything else in the quilting universe, the choices in battings has expanded exponentially (this is a very big word that I like to use whenever I can to make myself look smart). So let’s have a look at each type and what they can and cannot do.

NOTE:

Here’s a trick that comes in real handy when your project is a bit catawampus or your quilt top doesn’t want to lay flat no matter how much you starch and iron it. To correct this, use 2 layers of batting in your project – I recommend cotton since its lighter. The extra batting helps to take up the extra slack in your quilt top and lays it down flat.

100% man-made polyester quilt batting

There’s nothing ‘natural’ about this option. And to be honest polyester batting has a lot of problems and it’s not my favorite. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t have its proper place in the spectrum of artistic options.

Polyester batting is used only behind the really puffy fish, making them stand out from the flatter cotton quilt batting used for the whole panel.
Foam can be used to create the same effect.
We used polyester batting, carefully cut away from sections of the lilies, to create this incredibly subtle 3D effect

Pros:

It’s very light – actually the lightest batting available
Very cost-effective. If cost is an issue for you, then this is the cheapest way to proceed.
I find this batting a good choice for children’s soft cuddle toys, poufy baby quilts, etc. I keep some on hand to use for ‘Trapunto’ – which is when you put batting behind an applique to make it ‘pop out’ from the rest of the design.
This batting is also ideal for baby and young children’s quilts because it is so light-weight and yet warm. You don’t have to load your precious little one down with heavy quilts to keep them warm.

Cons:

Polyester batting can be pulled apart quite easily which means that it has to be quilted much more tightly than other battings so it won’t pull apart inside your quilt and make lumps. This takes more thread and time.
For want of a better word, polyester batting is fluffy and poofy, even the low-loft stuff which is much flatter than the high-loft batting. This makes it harder to quilt and also makes keeping your quilt surface flat a considerable challenge.

100% Natural Cotton Batting

If the thought of manufactured goods bothered you, and you prefer to keep a connection to natural ingredients than this is probably the most natural choice for you. Most cotton battings are now 100% natural.

This panel used different layers of different types of batting to create the puffy, full effect
A single layer of thin cotton batting helps keep the focus on this silhouette

I really, really like cotton battings and use them in most of my quilting projects. In my opinion there aren’t that many cons to using cotton, or mostly cotton, battings. Here’s why…

Pros:

Cotton battings are thin, lay flat, can be easily ironed and are mid-weight which makes them a superior choice for quilts that will be used on beds.
They are also warm for being so thin. If you have never constructed a full size quilt, you will be amazed at how heavy they can get when all 3 layers are sewn together. The front, batting and backing are not heavy by themselves, yet quilt them together and boy howdy, that sucker gets heavy real fast! This is an important consideration if you’re planning a king or queen quilt and plan on quilting it yourself – the thicker your batting, the heavier the quilt gets – exponentially.
These battings are much harder to pull apart manually and will not come apart with repeated washing. Therefore, the quilting does not have to be that dense to keep it in place. Most of these battings can be quilted 8” – 10” apart, which cuts down on the amount of thread you use and also the time it takes to quilt your project.
Because they are lightweight, they work very well for panels that will be displayed on walls because there is very little drag.
If perchance, your batting piece is not large enough for your project, it is simplicity itself to sew 2 or more pieces together. Just lay the pieces side by side and sew them together with beige thread and a zig-zag stitch. I have seen special joining tape that can be purchased for this purpose, but it’s not necessary.
Cotton batting will lay flat and straight if you sew the seams with a tight enough stitch.

Cons:

Criss-crossing seams in an autumn crazy quilt

Cotton quilt batting is more expensive
Cotton doesn’t have that “cuddly” feeling – so by itself it may not be the best choice for a child’s quilt or a comfort lap quilt.
Cotton can get too warm really fast. Sometimes a quilt tends to be wonky and have pleats and bubbles. One of the best ways to get around this is to use a double layer of batting to stretch the quilt top – but a double layer of cotton batting can be much too suffocating for a summer quilt.

Another Natural Batting is 100% Wool Batting

I’m not a huge fan of wool quilt batting, but it does exist, and it is, occasionally, a good choice for a great quilt. Since I seldom use it, you may want to take my advice on it with just a little grain of salt.

Pros:

The main usage for wool batting in my world is when I really want to define some aspect of the quilting.

This is what cotton batting looks like, flat and neatly trimmed. I don’t use wool enough to have pics of the effects

Because wool batting is approximately twice as thick as cotton, the quilting lines go in much deeper than with cotton batting. This causes the un-quilted portion of your project to pop up and appear much closer than it is. In effect, it causes a 3-D illusion. I used this technique in my Night Guardian panel. The night sky portion of that panel was quilted with wool batting and therefore appears much closer than it actually is. I also used this same quilting on the background of my dragon panel to help the dragon itself pop off of the panel.

Wool batting, however, does have its good points. One of these is that, like cotton, it is natural so that there is less worry about allergy and health issues.

Wool quilt batting’s also densely constructed, so the quilting doesn’t have to be that heavy.

Also, washing is not a problem – it goes through washers and dryers without pilling, pulling apart, or shrinking.

Cons:

Wool batting, by its very nature is WARM. Very warm. Unless you live in an unheated house, or Antarctica, you may want to re-think using a wool batting in your quilts. They are HOT!

Wool batting is also very heavy. For these reasons I don’t use it in quilts, especially NOT anything larger than a lap quilt. Remember that once you layer all 3 entities of a quilt sandwich together, a quilt gets heavy very fast. If you use wool batting, the weight will become almost unmanageable. I had to have help pulling a quilt sandwich through my machine, and that was just the middle panel of my dragon quilt. Imagine, if you will, the weight of a full-sized quilt!

These are the 3 main types of batting available in quilt stores. The come in different weights, thicknesses, and percentages. The choices seem overwhelming when you look at the shelves and shelves of batting choices.

But my number one recommendation is:

blue, purple and aqua quilt called Twilight Tide

Warm’N’Natural Mostly Cotton Batting

This stuff is amazing. Its 80% cotton, and 20% some man-made fiber I can’t really pronounce. It combines the best of both worlds, and is warm but much lighter than any other option.

You can double-down on it without causing your house to sink into its foundation, and you can also use it in combination with wool or polyester quilt battings when you’re going for poufy applique techniques.

You’ll find warm’n’natural quilt batting in most of my quilts and wall hangings from the last ten years, and I’ll stand by its use in 97% of quilting situations.

It’s also fairly well-priced on one of our favorite money-saving sites, Fabric.com. Here you can get a King-sized package and – unless you’re making a king-sized quilt – it’ll last at least a couple of months.

My final recommendation is to use warm’n’natural mostly – but if you want or need to use a different quilt batting for some reason, here’s Princess YellowBelly Design’s final word.

Match-Up of Desired Finish to Functionality

Most quilt battings can be layered
Foam works great with batting
And you can achieve this effect – easy, beautiful, and in-depth

Functionality – Cotton batting either 100% natural or a blend – it really doesn’t matter.
Showpiece – If it’s small enough and you really want to create a 3-D effect use 100% wool batting. If it’s larger use cotton. Sometimes, I’ll use 2 layers of cotton batting so that I get the 3-D effect without the weight.
Competition – If you’re entering your work to be judged, then use the best batting you can afford and get it professionally quilted. Weight doesn’t matter so much in this instance, but quality does.
Decorative – Use cotton batting and quilt thoroughly – you don’t want it to lose its shaped and definition while it’s hanging.
Gifts – Depends on size and function but use the best batting you can afford so that the gift will endure.
Heirlooms – This is where quality is the most obvious. If you are planning for your projects to be passed down to future generations, you have to use the best quality materials available and this includes your batting. I would recommend warm’n’natural, of course, but if not then you should go for 100% cotton at the highest quality available.

Purchasing Batting

Like everything else you need to consider your needs and shop around.

Packaged quilt batting comes in specific sizes – twin, queen, king, etc. If you are only going to be sewing one project then buying a pre-packaged size is the cheapest way to go. There will be little waste.

Also, if you’re purchasing online, then this is the cheapest option to ship.

However, if, like me, you sew constantly, and – unlike me you live close to a JoAnn’s Fabric store – then I would recommend buying your batting by the yard from rolls. And when I say yard it’s not a 45” wide yard like it is for fabric, but a 90” yard.

Especially if you have a bulk coupon it’s much, much cheaper this way too, and art stores carry a lot of different brands to boot.

When all of your materials work together right…you have created art!

A Final Note of Caution

I have seen packaged batting that is made from 100% recyclable materials.

Now, I like recycling and saving the environment as much as the next quilter, but I can’t help it…I’m EXTREMELY leery of these.

My thinking is this…whatever they were recycled from you can bet it was chemically constructed, manmade, and unnatural. Then they recycle it with more chemicals and reconstruct it with even more processing and chemicals.

This is certainly not something I want to put close to my face in a bed quilt – especially for babies or young children – or in a heirloom quilt will it start to break down after 10-20 years? I would urge caution if you want to go in this direction and start with something small.

Fixer – Uppers – How to Fix Quilting Mistakes

June 11, 2019 by admin

Rippled reflection of black horse running during the sunset

In the world of carpentry, a fixer-upper would be a house that needs fixing. However, in the world of fabric art, fixer-uppers are the things we use to make the fixes. When you need to undo a major mistake – also known as boo-boos – or get to places where a sewing machine cannot, these three little things are how to fix quilting mistakes.

I would strongly suggest that you have these things in your sewing kits, as a true fabric artist cannot do without them.

These three little helpers can turn a so-so project into a WOW project and a, “how did they do that?” project, because they make mistakes either inconsequential or completely invisible.

Curling leaves, missed stitches, and contrasting colors are all potential mistakes – but you can’t see any of them here

#1 How to Fix Quilting Mistakes Using Fabric Glue

This stuff is absolutely invaluable and completely necessary in fabric art, because not only are you not infallible, neither is your sewing machine.

Accidents happen; accept this, stop beating yourself up over them, and learn how to fix quilting mistakes.

Fabric glue is your #1 fixer-upper. I’ve noticed that some fabrics have a much higher fray rate than others, and if you stitch them too close to the edge, or if your stitch length is just a tiny bit too loose for that particular fabric, it will fray right through the seam.

The heck of it is that it doesn’t happen right away. It waits until you’ve sewn down all around it and it’s almost impossible to get that exact spot back under your machine.

Now what?

There are dozens of different accessories that need to be held fast with fabric glue.

I had a ton of this type of trouble with my dragon quilt. I was sashing with black Kona fabric and even though I checked every seam as I finished it and everything, every time I turned around, there was another place that had let go.

I was using a few creative curses by the time I finished! But fabric glue was my salvation here.

What Fabric Glue to Use – and How

I use either Aleene’s Fabric Fusion or Aleene’s Okay to Wash It glue. Both work equally well, dry invisibly, and hold through endless washings.

This is tedious work, so Leiajoy does most of my gluing for me, and she likes to use a toothpick to maneuver the drops of glue around until she has it exactly where she wants it.

This fabric glue takes approximately 24 hours to dry and then it’s fixed.

I also use the glue as an extra hold for buttons, beads, etc. that I have sewn onto my creations because it is extra insurance that these items will never come loose. On the backs of projects I use a drop on the thread knots from sewing down these same buttons and beads to insure no coming loose.

I also use it on the back if I have gone too fast during some of my free-motion quilting and the bobbin thread got too loose and isn’t holding tight enough..

Rather than ripping it out and trying to maneuver the entire project back under my machine I just glue it and was-la! It will never come loose!

My advice is to get some of this amazing stuff and use it!

#2 How to Fix Quilting Mistakes Using Permanent Fabric Markers

This is not a specialty quilt store pen – these are those packs of bright Sharpie markers that you see every year in kids’ back-to-school supplies.

Cow jumps over the moon and dumps over the bucket into the Milky Way

These babies can become your best friends if you’ll let them.

They are the perfect solution for creating realistic illusions, finishing off things too tiny to sew, and marking out mistakes.

You can get these anywhere – I bought a 24 color set from Walmart. I also got a few gold and silver sparkly ones as well because I use so much bling.

However, for fixing quilting mistakes it’s the darker colors I use the most though, like black, navy, and brown. I use these in a number of different places.

First of all, if you sew your regular seams with beige, every now and then that beige will show through in the front of your project. Just use a matching marker and color over the beige and its gone – like magic! Very useful!

This trick is also very useful on your backings.

If your backing is a dark fabric – like black but you are using a light thread to quilt it from the top, sometimes that top thread will show through on the back. Once again, just use a matching fabric marker and color over the lighter thread and it vanishes!

**Stopping Mistakes Before They Are Mistakes**

I especially like these fabric markers for finishing off places on my custom appliques that are too small to sew.

For instance, the silhouettes of the smaller dragons on my dragon quilt had scales and claws on their necks, tails and feet that were just too small to both cut out and sew and yet they were essential to getting the right look.

This was a potential disaster, but I didn’t panic, because I know how to fix quilting “mistakes” like this.

I simply cut out the dragons without these accoutrements and appliqued the dragons. When that was done, I went back with a black marker and using the original picture as a guide just drew in the elements that were missing.

Ta-da!!

I did the same thing on my ‘Running Wild’ panel with the horses’ mane, because all those little wisps of hair were just too much to both cut and sew.

Other than the Dark Colors

This is easiest with black silhouettes, but you can really accomplish it with any color.

Depending on the fabric you use, you might have to color in once, wait an hour or so and then re-do it, as some fabric absorbs the color more than others, but it is certainly well worth the time.

Finally, I also use fabric markers on the backs of my projects if I have sewn something down by hand and the thread color I used doesn’t match the backing fabric. Sometimes, it’s more important to match your thread to the front than the back, and when this is the case, a magic marker makes all the difference.

I used this trick on my ‘Ocean Maidens’ quilt when I sewed the silver buckle onto the front.

I had to use silver thread so it would disappear on the front, but of course, the silver thread was glaringly obvious on the back – so a lilac colored marker came into play – and Bob was my uncle!

#3 How to Fix Quilting Mistakes Using Hand Sewing

Christmas Delivery - Christmas small wall hanging, what a completed project of a fabric panel for quilting looks like - close-up of an added fairy and a metallic ribbon border

As much as we would prefer to do everything with our machines because they are both faster and neater, there are times when the only way to get something done is by hand. There’s a lot of detail to hand-sewing, way too much to cover here, so I’ve given it its very own blog ‘Hand Sewing; How and When’. It’s coming soon, and I’ll update you in the newsletter when it shows up.

Until then, remember to keep some hand-sewing needles in your pincushion, and a small pair of scissors around for clipping loose ends.

So those are my three favorite fixer-upper tools when I need to figure out how to fix quilting mistakes. I always have these products around, and roughly seven times out of ten I can fix a potentially major boo-boo without little or no trouble.

How to Applique Fabric Art Quilts with Confidence

May 28, 2019May 28, 2019 by admin

If you have read any of my blogs at all, you will know that I love and use appliques, A LOT! I think they are the #1 friend of a fabric artist because they are the storytellers, which is what fabric art is all about.

Things Weren’t Always this Good, Kids

I used to avoid appliques like the plague when I first started because they seemed to be too difficult and time consuming. And they really can be if you follow all the ‘rules’ about how they should be cut and applied.

Learn how to applique to create magnificent statement & landscape quilts

I had a friend who once made a quilt that had a swath of flower appliques across one bottom corner.

Sound simple? Think again. That “simple” took her almost 2 years to stitch on (by hand) with stitches so tiny that her husband finally bought her a large, stand-up magnifying glass that she could use to see her own stitching. The whole process gave her major headaches, and I was absolutely horrified by it all and swore off appliqueing for life.

When I started creating my own fabric art, however, I realized several things:

I hate matching corners, so I had to find a different quilting style
Landscape is an amazing alternate style, but you can’t do it if you can’t applique

So, with gritted teeth, I bought some how-to books and started learning. Being me, it didn’t take long to come up with a faster and easier way to do this, which I want to share with you here.

In the case of this panel, first the dark green background shamrock was appliqued down. Then the broken hearts were appliqued down. Then the golden rope was sewn down. Learning how to applique makes creating unique and beautiful projects like this one a fun and easy adventure.

Break the Mold – Bend the Rules

First of all I asked myself; “Who’s ever going to look that closely at my friend’s painstaking appliqueing job on that quilt?”

Answer, probably no one, and if they do, they’re likely Quilt Nazis and who cares what they think anyway?

Certainly not me!

My mom – who was an extremely accomplished clothing seamstress used to say if someone was going to look that closely, then they had problems she didn’t want to even think about. I guess that’s where my attitude comes from.

Running wild black stallion on the beach at sunset, black, orange, gold, red fabric art interior wall art

So, keeping that in mind, I came up with my quicker, faster, easier version of appliqueing.

Principle #1 – Any Shape Known to Mankind Can Be Made Into an Applique

It’s not just about flowers, hearts, and stars. Literally anything you can conceive of can be made into an applique.

When I first started, I followed the appliqueing protocols and made my appliques out of tiny little different colored pieces of fabric that I laboriously cut out, laid down and stitched to make it look like a rose or whatever.

This quilt was one of the first places I used applique for an art project.
It seems incredible, but these appliques covered holes that were developing in these vintage squares.

As a quick aside, if you get into any quilting style you’ll likely figure out an easier way to do it sooner or later. But remember, emulate before you innovate. Doing it the “right way” the first time helps you understand the principles behind these techniques.

With that being said, it only took this one project to make me go seeking a better way.

Principle #2 – Keep it Simple

It’s very hard to translate an elaborate shape with lots of little pieces, etc. into a fabric applique. So look for the simplest outline you can find.

I prefer to use big appliques in single blocks. For instance, it’s much easier to get a custom rose applique if you fussy-cut an image out of a printed fabric swatch and use our easy process to turn any piece of fabric into a custom applique instead.

For other custom appliques I make a habit of envisioning the end result in my mind, and then figuring out the easiest way to translate that to fabric.

I can see what I want in my mind, but translating that into fabric is something else so I went looking for help. My favorite resource for this is coloring book shapes on Google. If you type ‘Treasure Chest Coloring Book Shapes’ into your search engine, you will get pages of outlines of treasure chest shapes to choose from! Or:

Absolutely anything. It’s marvelous! Here is how to applique using these types of shapes:

Mermaid shapes
Rockets
Dragons

Print Out 2 Copies of the Shape You Want

One the size you’re going to use, and a small one as a guideline, because once you cut the big shape into pieces, it’s often hard to figure out how it all goes back together.

Plan a 3-Dimensional Outcome

Some appliques can be cut out of just one piece of fabric – silhouettes – for example; but if you want the others to look more realistic, you’ll have to use more than one fabric.

My treasure chest applique on my Ocean Maidens quilt was made using a few simple layering steps:

The top and front pieces were a dark brown fabric
The end (or side of the chest) piece was black. This makes the chest look 3-D in shading terms
The “steel” strapping was gray fabric
The lines in the boards were made with thin black yarn

You can also add hardware in the form of buttons to make a clasp or lock, or use hot-fix studs to effect the metal work on a treasure chest. With these simple principles you can make any shape you want into a beautiful, 3-D layered applique.

Another panel, another style of treasure chest and a mermaid!

Fussy Cutting Magic

This is simply cutting an image you want out of a larger piece of fabric. The cardinals in my ‘Autumn Daze’ panel and my ‘Christmas Carolers’ were made this way, as well as all the fairies I put in anywhere I can.

You can add paperbacked soft-fuse to these images, and then use judicious stitching to pop out the 3-D effect.

Birds cut from one panel to stand out in another
The peacock and butterfly were both fussy cut from different panels

This is one of my very favorite time-saving techniques when we’re talking about how to applique, but as it’s a longer, more involved technique we’ll do an article all about this later. But the most important tip for fussy cutting is to always use a small pair of scissors with very sharp points, to get into those very small areas in every shape.

Apply Paperbacked Soft-Fuse to Every Piece Before You Cut the Applique Out

This helps to stabilize your fabric making it easier to cut out. The soft-fuse also nips fraying in the bud for long periods of time, and it enables you to iron your applique down right where you want it – you can even re-position your piece once or twice if you didn’t get it right the first time.

Believe it or not…
The red feathers on our Freedom Flight panel are all appliqued down

There’s another article about this product, and you can read it anytime.

Principle #3 – How to Applique – The Actual Sewing-it-Down-Right Part

Whew, we’re finally to the actual applique part of this project. And here you have to make two important choices; thread and stitch type.

Thread Choice

Do you want your applique or the thread itself to be the real pop-out star of the show?

If it’s your applique, then choose a matching or an invisible thread that mostly disappears unless you look very carefully. This allows the applique to shine forth.

If you want the thread to pop – which is something I usually go for when doing flowers or mermaid tails – then choose thread that is a couple of shades darker or lighter than your applique so that it will show up well. Variegated threads and metallic threads work very well for this.

Without metallic threads these mermaids would fade into the background – plus mermaids are magical, and should sparkle!

How to Applique Using the Right Stitch Type

I use three different types of stitches depending on the effect I’m going for.

Straight Stitch

This is when you stitch just along the inside edge of your applique. When you apply any type of soft-fuse product you control the fraying somewhat, but you can’t stop it completely. This is known as raw-edge applique, because when you stitch a straight line around an applique you will have a small amount of fraying and the outer edge will look a little ragged.

I’m not a big fan of this look unless I’m making something that should look fuzzy and fray-ish, like grass, etc. However, appliqueing with a straight stitch uses a lot less thread and is by far the fastest way to sew an applique down.

Black stallion running wild against red, orange, and gold sunset backdrop fabric magic quilt

Straight stitch also works best for appliques that won’t fray, such as embroidery appliques that you buy at the store.

And, sometimes, when you’re doing detail work – like on a mermaid’s face, for example, you just have to do it and put it as close to the edge as possible.

Blanket Stitch

A blanket stitch is a straight stitch that throws in one zig-zag stitch every 3^rd or 4^th stitch. It’s a great combination of a straight stitch’s neatness, and a zig-zag stitch’s security.

How to applique with a blanket stitch is also a relatively easy concept – as you don’t have to go as slowly or be so extremely accurate going around the outside of an applique. The one zig-zag will catch your applique if you miss the straight stitch part.

I use this stitch a lot on my fabric appliques like leaves, flowers, etch. They don’t fray hardly at all, and the blanket stitch mostly disappears on them, so it looks as if they’re just lying there by magic.

These types of silk leaf and flower appliques are sewn down using either straight or blanket stitches, while the tree roots behind them are appliqued down with a satin stitch.

If your sewing machine will allow it, you can also reverse the direction of a blanket stitch to accommodate your natural right-or-left-hand sewing direction.

Zig-Zag Satin Stitch

This is my favorite appliqueing stitch because it finishes up your edges so beautifully and stops all those little frays in their tracks.

I’m NOT a fan of fraying – as you might have guessed. Actually, I loathe fraying, and I often feel as though I’m in a war against those picky little threads. As I sew each section of a quilt together and the frays are incorporated into the seams, I perform a little victory dance in my head.

With a tight zig-zag satin stitch you can conquer your frays.

I also prefer the satin stitch – which is just a very tight zig-zag – because it’s more dramatic, covers everything and just looks cool. Variegated thread makes a stunning impact in this instance, as in my ‘Summer Lily Table Topper.’

I used a matching metallic thread to satin stitch around the tails of my mermaids in my Ocean Maidens quilt and that really made them pop. The neat thing about a satin stitch is that you can make it as narrow or wide as you like to achieve the look you’re going for.

This is a typical use of a satin stitch as an applique technique – it finishes the raw edges neatly with no possibility of fraying
For sharper highlights, one alternative to a satin stitch is using embroidery thread strands
Or a satin stitch can be used to create delicate details, like the thinnest rays of this Star of Bethlehem in addition to appliqueing the fabric down

How to Applique – That’s All Folks!

And that’s it. That’s all appliqueing is – finding the shape you want, cutting it out, applying soft-fuse, and sewing it down.

Don’t let it frighten you. It’s actually a lot easier than it looks, and like everything else practice makes perfect, or as perfect as anything man-made can be. Plus appliqueing is fun, endlessly creative, and saves a lot of time on matching pesky points!

To your increased Quiltivity, see you next time…

How to Best Use Spray Starch for Ironing Quilting Fabrics

April 26, 2019 by admin

Stained Glass Autumn - a crazy quilt with orange themes

Spray starch for ironing quilting fabrics is another one of those inventions that have made not only ironing but the entire quilting process a whole lot more fun and accurate. Back in the day – when I was a shiny new quilter still wet behind the ears – I only used water in a spray bottle to steam iron my quilts, and this worked okay for the most part.

You should also know that I’m one of those quilters, who, for some strange reason, cannot keep the steam feature on an iron working.

I’ve had about five different irons in the last fifteen years. I follow the directions carefully, and use distilled water to prevent mineral buildup, and within a few uses the mechanism fails.

Even Michael – my own handsome Prince BlueShoe – can’t figure this one out!

Achieving a sharp, professional look is much easier with spray starch

The Advantages of Using Spray Starch for Ironing Instead of Water

My steam-destroying abilities is why I started using a spray bottle in the first place, and maybe one reason I found it so easy to switch over to using spray starch for ironing, since there are some things that water won’t do for your fabric that spray starch will.

It takes a lot of water to get out the really deep creases

You actually have to get the fabric wet, not just damp, and hold the iron down on it for a lot longer to get these deep creases out. Then, since the fabric is so damp, you have to waste time ironing it till it dries.

Spray starch, on the other hand, will take even the deepest packing creases out with just a few squirts of starch and maybe 10-20 seconds of hard pressing with the iron.

Strawberry place setting or table topper - bargello quilted fabric art — *Without spray starch for ironing the quilting fabrics, projects like our Summer Strawberry Table Topper wouldn’t really work.*

Water will not stiffen fabric

Getting out the creases without spray starch is doable, if time consuming, but ironing with water will not stiffen your fabric – it leaves it in the same soft state as when you started. Using spray starch for ironing, on the other hand, stiffens your fabric nicely and holds it that way.

Therefore it’s much easier to make straight and even cuts, and to sew straight seams.

Something I’ve noticed about quilting over the years is that fabric has its own personality, and some fabrics are ornery. Sometimes when I’ve used water, and cut a line I know was straight, I’ve sewn it later and found what should have been a perfect 2 inch wide strip warped.

This is because of the natural stretch in the weave of the fabric – and yes, even some quality batiks will do this, it’s just the nature of the beast.

To get from this…
$Right in the middle of a quilting project - creating a fractured Christmas tree under northern lights fractured panel$
…To this…
Your foundation seams need to look like this!

Spray starch effectively immobilizes the weave of a fabric in the short-term.

As with anything else, if you want the finished product to look great, you need to spend time and energy getting the foundations right. In quilting, these foundations are your cuts and your seams.

Water doesn’t make seams open up

It takes a LOT more time to get your seams to stay lying flat after you iron them open if you only use water. This can be really annoying on some strip piecing projects, especially on Bargello quilts, where the seams absolutely must be opened.

When you use spray starch for ironing seams open, the fabric is already stiff, and just pressing the tip of the iron into the opening of the seam will encourage the seam to open up and lay flat for a few inches at a time.

As an aside, if you sew a seam within a few days of having spray starched your fabrics, you can use water spray as a way to conserve money on spray starch.

Spray starch can stand up to several applications of water steam before it starts to wash out.

It is much easier to quilt over fabric that is starched than it is on water-steamed fabric

Your fabric will pull more evenly through the machine and not want to bunch up. It makes for a much smoother and professional looking product.

In a Bargello project all seams must be ironed open and flat
And once they are…
…You can achieve this amazingly flat, crisp, and solid result.

Using spray starch for ironing quilt backings helps to reduce quilting pleats

When you spray starch your backing before you layer it with the batting, it is surprisingly easy to iron out any creases and to keep them out. Since I started doing this, I never have to pin my backing/batting layers – except for large queen quilts – and the only creases I get (if any) are very small and hardly noticeable.

The Best Ways to Use Spray Starch for Ironing Quilting Fabrics & Projects

Now that we’re all in agreement about the benefits of using spray starch instead of just water, there are a few tips to ironing with spray starch which will make your experience much better.

Don’t spray the starch on the right side of your fabric

Always spray it on the wrong side. There are some fabrics that spray starch doesn’t seem to adhere to as well as others, and the starch will leave a shiny, opaque white residue that can’t be rubbed off. This residue is subtle, but it will detract from the appeal of your quilt if it’s on the front.

There’s no telling which fabrics will pick this up and which ones won’t, and if you get this stuff on the right side you have to wash the fabric.

Thankfully, this residue doesn’t matter if it’s on the wrong side of the fabric. It doesn’t seem to make any difference to the texture of the spray starched fabric, or gum up my machine, so if it’s hidden I don’t fuss over it.

Spray starch every step of the way

If you sew one section, then cut and re-sew – like in a crazy quilt, for example – spray starch & iron again before you resew. This helps to keep your different sections even and straight. I also like to spray starch my backing fabric, as I mentioned above, as it really helps cut down on my pleats.

I will, however, add one caveat.

Some fabrics, mostly the cottons you’ll get from non-specialty stores like Walmart, will require constant spraying. Others, mostly high-end batiks and landscape fabrics from quilt stores, will require minimal spray starching, and will keep the spray starch even if you steam iron the fabric with water several times.

A general rule of thumb is that if a fabric feels slightly stiff right off the bolt, then it’s going to hold spray starch well. If it’s soft and moldable from the get-go, it will take more spray starch to keep the stiff, structured texture that makes quilting so much easier.

As you spend time using spray starch for ironing your various quilting fabrics and projects you’ll develop your own instinctive feel for when to use, and when to save, spray starch.

Don’t be afraid to re-starch fabric after time has passed

Life happens to the best of us. We all start projects and get interrupted, then go back to it days, weeks, months, and even years later. If I have starched and sewn something and then put it away for a while, I always re-starch before I start again, as it seems to me that the effectiveness of the starching fades over time.

This has its positive side, as well.

Once you’ve made a quilt project, the spray starch will fade out even if you never wash the piece, and within a month or two you won’t be able to feel any unnatural stiffness in the fabric. I think this is especially nice if you’re making a baby quilt, since babies and kids have very sensitive skin.

Use the “low-weights, high-reps” principle for stubborn creases

The really deep, hard creases in fabric that has been folded for a while will need more spray starch than normal. However, spraying heavy amounts of starch all at once will increase your chances of getting that icky white residue, and will also make the fabric tacky, rather than stiff.

Instead, try using two separate applications of starch, but don’t spray too heavily. The creases come out much more easily if you spray lightly (one or two spritzes), hold your iron down to the count of 10, spray lightly again and repeat.

Best Press spray starch for ironing in spray bottle

**Buy your spray starch by the gallon, and not the 16 oz. spray jars**

Spray starch is one of those things that is much more economic to buy in bulk. For instance, I just bought a gallon of Mary Ellen’s Best Press from Amazon for $44.23.

This may seem like a lot, but at my local quilt store they’re selling the 16 oz. spray bottles for $18.50 each. Since 4 of these will fit in one gallon, the total cost of buying it this way would be $74.00. So, by purchasing it by the gallon, you’ve just saved $30.00! Awesome!

I bought 2 spray bottles to begin with, and I just refill them from my gallon jugs. This is by far the cheapest and best way to go, because if you do much sewing, and get hooking on using spray starch for ironing – which you will – you’ll go through a LOT of spray starch.

The price varies from time to time, but it’s still the cheapest way to buy this essential quilting supply.

Don’t ever buy scented spray starch

They usually add scents like lavender to spray starch. And it smells nice in the bottle, but once it gets hot – YUCK!

Spray starch has a pretty intense smell to start with, think about doing laundry in a room with no ventilation and you’ll get the idea. When you add scent to it the smell tends to permeate the entire room as well as your fabric. And unlike the efficacy of the spray starch, the scent will linger until you wash the fabric in a machine.

Plus, I’m one of those people who tends to have minor allergic reactions to certain scents, and this smell gives me a headache, which I really like to avoid!

Be ready to get a new ironing board cover regularly

Because spray starch is by its very nature sticky, it will leave a bit of a mess behind on your ironing board and your fingers. Fingers are easily washed as are ironing board covers. But since a new ironing board cover costs just a couple of bucks, I don’t usually both since it’s a bit of a pain.

I generally get a new cover every year to 18 months, since the wear and tear of various products takes a toll on these cheap cotton covers.

Our Recommended Brand of Spray Starch for Ironing Quilting Fabrics

I’ve tried a number of different starches over the years, but have settled firmly on Mary Ellen’s Best Press.

It’s the least messy, it comes with an unscented option, it comes in gallon containers, and it’s easily available. If you haven’t used spray starch before or haven’t used this brand, I would really urge you to try it.

Best Press has made my ironing much more fun, and has helped to make my sewing experiences a great deal less frustrating because it’s so much easier to get straight, even pieces.

How to Survive the Middle of a Quilting Project

April 14, 2019April 14, 2019 by admin

$Right in the middle of a quilting project - creating a fractured Christmas tree under northern lights fractured panel$

If you are the least bit observant, you may have noticed that as life goes, so does quilting – or any other project you undertake. The beginning is exciting and challenging, the end is – hopefully – rewarding and satisfying, but the middle of a quilting project drags you down and hits you with every negative emotion known to man.

The middle of a quilting project is where you’ll discover evil “D” emotions:

Discouragement
Disappointment
Depression
Delusion

When your project looks like this – it’s hard to remember what it will look like in the end…

All of which usually leads us to ask, “Why am I even bothering with this?”

Quilters Have Great Need of Endurance

My friends we have need of endurance. I really hate that word, endurance, but it is as completely essential in quilting as it is in life. I’m thinking about this right now, because I’m in the middle of my mermaid quilt and I am SO DONE with it!

Unfortunately, the quilt is not done with me.

I’ve felt this way about a number of my projects – the dragon quilt comes to mind, as well as my Lily Quilt Disaster. At one point, I threw my lily quilt into a drawer and left it there for a year before I could stand to face it again.

The good news is most of my little fabric art adventures don’t generate this kind of hatred, but when the middle of a quilting project is dragging me down like an extra hundred pound weight, I shift into survival mode.

Tips for Surviving the Middle of a Quilting Project

As with most other aspects of our lives that demand endurance from our souls, it becomes easier to endure if you’ve got a few tricks up your sleeve. Some of these tips are practical, born from experience, and some of them are psychological tricks to buck you up.

Either way, it’s essential to have a plan for when the going gets rough, because, my creative brothers and sisters, it will get rough sooner or later.

Tip #1 – Start another project

Layered fabrics mostly beautiful batiks in ivory cream to dark red shades

Having another quilting project – a much smaller project – that will take only a few hours or days of your time is a great way to relieve the boredom and tedium to be found in the middle of a quilting project.

Potholders is one project that you can get very creative with and finish in the course of a morning or two. Being able to finish something, anything, will help you feel positive about your skills again and regenerate your enthusiasm.

Tip #2 – Big projects and hard deadlines don’t mix!

Never start a big project when you’re under any kind of deadline. If you want to give your brother a double wedding ring queen sized quilt for his wedding, for example, consider giving it to him on his second anniversary.

All the extra pressure will just exacerbate those negative “D” feelings that inevitably crop up in the middle of a quilting project, and those emotions make it even harder to finish on time.

Tip #3 – You’re not making the whole quilt, just this one section

I recently read that “a man, having one backside, cannot sit two horses.”

Beyond the hilarious visual image – this is actually quite true. You’re not sewing the whole quilt in one morning. All you’re doing is attaching this applique, or stripping this section, or cutting this strip of binding.

$Right in the middle of a quilting project - creating a fractured Christmas tree under northern lights fractured panel$

So try breaking your project up into manageable sections and only do one section at a time. That way, if you find yourself falling into the “middle of the quilting project doldrums” you can just leave it and sew something else in between.

This way, you won’t feel guilty about having an unfinished project because you planned it that way!

Tip #4 – Be a show off

Show the parts that you have finished to family or friends and bask in their praise. Oftentimes you’ll be seeing a mistake or problem in your quilt which a third party won’t even notice.

I recently showed a project of mine to Barb – it was a fractured panel center, and I had sewn all the horizontal strips upside down! She didn’t notice, and couldn’t see it when I pointed it out. All she saw was the gorgeous twisting colors.

These reactions will really help re-up your enthusiasm for the entire enterprise.

The first Seam Ripper Champion ever – Karyl’s Summer Lily Quilt – was a great example of horrific struggles through the middle of a quilting project that yielded amazing results!

Tip #5 – Give yourself permission to go slowly

The more beautiful a quilt the harder it will be to get just right.

Keep reminding yourself that fabric art – versus just quilting – is much more involved and will automatically take a lot more time to complete. It’s much more important to do it right than it is to do it fast. So give yourself permission to be slow.

Tip #6 – Out of sight, out of pain

Put your project away for a while. Make sure it’s completely out of sight so that the nasty little guilt tripper that sits on your shoulder and whispers in your ear will have nothing to say.

Tip #7 – Take a long look back

Look back at some of the other difficult projects you’ve completed but thought you never would.

Years ago I made a double wedding ring quilt that my kids named ‘The Never-Ending Quilt’ because it took me so long. But now it has lived on our bed for 9 years already!

And if you’ve never made a quilting project before – look back on another hard moment of your life that you overcame with some patience and perseverance.

Just keep reminding yourself that this too shall end and it will be worth it! Remember – Patience is not only a virtue, it’s an essential in fabric art.

Special Announcement – Open Submissions!

Seam Ripper Championships Open Submissions Announcement

Patience, endurance, perseverance, and hard-won successes are the driving forces behind our Seam Ripper Championships. Princess YellowBelly is all about sharing rough experiences, not-funny-at-the-time disasters, struggles with evil “D” emotions, and that all-consuming battle in the middle of a quilting project.

That way, you can overcome the next struggle more easily.

Right now we’re holding the first ever “open submissions” for our Seam Ripper Championships. That means you don’t have to be a member to submit your story of struggling with and overcoming fabric hardships.

But we’re only holding this open till the 23^rd.

To find out more about this opportunity, read the submission guidelines, and send us your tale of tragedy and triumph, go to the Seam Ripper Championships page! I can’t wait to hear your story.

Submit Your Story Today!

Backgrounds Come First in Landscape Quilt Designs

April 3, 2019 by admin

Cowboy riding at sunset - brilliant background in a landscape quilt design

Some quilters, like me, want to make beautiful quilts without matching points. One of the easiest and best ways to achieve this is by sewing beautiful landscape quilt designs. Landscape quilts are bold, eye-catching, individually unique, and in my opinion a lot easier to sew and quilt than most traditional patterns.

But with these quilts you can’t start in the front – with your snow-capped mountains or your fairies on flowers.

You have to start with the background elements.

A background, by its very definition, is in the back. For most of us this translates as “not as important” or “the very least important part of your quilt.” After all, it’s the main pattern that you want people to notice. That’s where your talent shines.

Believe it or not – there’s a series of traditional pinwheel squares behind these colorful fish.

And this is true as far as it goes, but we need to recall that old saying, “Behind every successful businessman is his wife.”

In other words, in any endeavor it’s the hidden, nearly invisible, foundation that has to be built correctly in order for the structure to be of any use. So let’s take a look at how that translates into fabric art.

Backgrounds Matter in Every Quilt – Not Just Landscape Quilt Designs

Although backgrounds are vital to the success of any landscape quilts, and landscape backgrounds can also be a lot of fun, other quilts have background elements that need to be treated with respect in order to work.

Backgrounds are the biggest areas in quilts and are therefore important.
If you don’t pick the right background color or pattern, you’ll waste all your time, money and talent because the “front pattern” will not pop out like it should.

I once spent 3 weeks selecting and cutting pieces for a double wedding ring quilt.

My choice was a dark blue that matched the blue in the flower patterned fabric that made the wedding rings – the “front pattern.” After all that, when I sewed the first part together it was awful! Everything vanished and the pattern was totally obscured. So it was back to the drawing board for me.

Understand Quilt Backgrounds

We used a zipper back background on this autumnal wall hanging. The tree trunk cover much of the long-short stripping, but the effect is still to create an abstract, believably blurred out background.

To avoid this kind of waste, here are a few tips that will help you skip past the “learning from your own mistakes” section, straight to the “WOW” section.

Take the time to just think about what you want your project to be and do.

Whether it’s a small wall hanging or a king quilt, everything you make should have a purpose which can vary from keeping you warm, to beautifying your home, to impress, to show love, to tickle your funny bone, etc.

Backgrounds provide one of three functions:

To fade into the background. In this instance, your background is simply providing the foundation for the real pattern or foreground to live on.
To focus most of the attention on a single entity in the pattern such as a mermaid, dragon, house, etc. Here the background does not fade out but enhances the foreground.
To carry the same importance as the foreground. This occurs when your background (as in our Running Wild panel) is the equal to the foreground.

Choosing the Right Fadeout Color

If you want the background in your landscape quilt designs to fade in the overall field of vision a pale, muted color is best – beige comes to mind. Maybe I should call it cream, since it sounds so much more sophisticated!

Seriously, though, look at the fabrics that will make up your main pattern, and you might be able to choose one of the colors in that to use as a background.

Although it looks like a plain cream background, if you look closely at this example of a landscape quilt design, you’ll notice that there are 4 different cream colors in each “leaf.”

This was the case on my famous/infamous ‘Home Pastures’ quilt. There was a certain shade of blue in each of our three main printed fabric panels. We took those panels to the quilt store, and searched through the entire selection of blue until we found a fabric that picked that shade up – and we used it as the sashing – which can be a type of background in itself.

If the choice doesn’t just jump up and smack you in the face, try this:

lay out all the fabrics you think might work
Then lay one piece of your main design on top and see which ones look yucky, okay, good, great, and fantastic. Of course, you want to use the one that looks fantastic.
If you can’t decide, get another opinion. Michael and Suzanna are both great at this.

Even though your background is the largest part of your quilt, if you pick the right color for it, your eye will see it but your brain won’t. This is also true for strongly contrasting backgrounds – if it’s right, it vanishes under the weight of the overall effect.

Choosing the Right Focusing Color

When the purpose of your background is to focus all of a viewer’s attention on a single entity, you need to think and plan very carefully. Achieving this effect is more a result of purposeful strategy than simply choosing the right color.

This principle is often used in nature photography.

A background, even a very strong background like a mountain, is blurred out in order to focus all the attention on the bird or flower or whatnot.

The Milky Way Baby Quilt is at least 93% background, and a layered background at that. But the entire effect is to focus your eye on one tiny applique at the top – the cow jumping over the bucket and the moon.

If you look at a Thomas Kinkaid painting, you’ll notice that everything points to one place – usually a house. He achieved that effect with all the background details and his unique use of light.

You can do the same with your fabric art.

Pick out one or two things that you want to focus viewers’ attention on, and then pick images (flora, fauna, water, wildlife, etc.) to enhance that.

Most of the time these types of backgrounds are very busy, like my coral reef panel. In some landscape quilts designs, however, the more austere your background, the better your main image pops.

So it all depends. There are no hard and fast rules here.

Choosing the Right “Backwards Coming Forwards” Color

As crazy as this sounds, sometimes your background needs to be your foreground. This mostly occurs in very strikingly austere quilts such as silhouettes.

When you make a silhouette, your foreground is one solid color – usually black. In order to make that pop, you need a very striking background. We use this design element in projects such as ‘Running Wild’ & ‘The Cowboy and His Lady.’

The sunset colors in the background are the focal point.

In my Camel Panel, I used a darker constellation fabric for my background, and even though the black silhouetted camels are in the foreground, it’s the night sky that you see first.

Once again, lay out your fabrics, and try different combinations until you’re happy with the look.

A nice side-effect of this type of project is that it’s hard to go wrong. If you have an idea of what effect you want to achieve, and your silhouette is easily recognizable (like a horse) then your background will become stunning pretty easily.

Use the Background to Create Movement in Landscape Quilt Designs

One of the major differences between traditional quilting and fabric art is that quilting creates a pattern, and fabric art creates a picture.

Since we’re interested in the unique and creative, obviously we want our fabric art to do more than just lay there looking impressive with all our point matching exactly.

One of the ways fabric art mirrors reality is by creating movement.

This particular project is still under construction – eventually though these wide borders will be a “tidal pool and silver net” background for the central mermaid panel.

And I’d say that approximately 59% of the movement in a quilt should come from the background elements.

Since we’re talking fabric art here, movement is achieved with fabric and the patterns you put it into. Many quilting patterns naturally mimic movement, and the limit to making them take flight is only your imagination.

Landscape Quilt Designs that Create Movement

A few of my favorite patterns for creating movement in landscape quilting designs are:

The pinwheel
Bargello
Zipper back
Strip piecing
And patchwork patterns.

These patterns mimic movement in and of themselves, but when you purposefully design the colors to create one effect, level to level, from the beginning, it really enhances the effect.

My best example of this is my Coral Reef panel.

If you look closely at the background, you will see I used a pinwheel pattern. I constructed 3 levels of these, starting with the darkest down against the sand, then a medium level and lastly a very light level, to convey the impression of moving upwards.

Next, I used one or two of the same fabric in each level (note the lime green) to help draw the eye back and forth.

And even though your eyes may not consciously notice the background here because of all of the stuff happening in the foreground of this panel, your brain notes it and says “water”.

This same technique works just as well for any project and any pattern. Bargello is all about using the same colors in different layers, to draw the eye and create movement.

Pay attention to the fabrics you use in your designs. There are so many different ones out there with circles, swirls, dots, zigzags, starbursts, leaves, bubbles, etc. If you use these in your background patterns they will automatically create movement all by themselves and enhance your illusions exponentially!

As with all fabric art, the creating is the glory, so let your inner genie loose on your backgrounds first!

The Most “Wonderful” Way to Make Sewing Appliques on Quilts Easy

April 15, 2019March 24, 2019 by admin

Small birds appliqued on a blue sky background - paperbacked fusible webbing used for sewing appliques on quilts

Wonder-Under – or soft paperbacked fusible webbing – is another one fabulous quilting invention that have made quilting, and especially fabric art, much more do-able and enjoyable. This is because wonder-under products makes sewing appliques on quilts painlessly easy – and appliqueing is one of the easiest ways to easily create a stunning quilt project.

What Fusible Webbing Is – And Isn’t

Wonder-Under is a paperbacked fusible web, very similar in most ways to traditional interfacing, and it’s transformed the world of applique.

Try to think of Wonder-Under as specialty interfacing for applique projects. The two biggest differences are that (1 it’s sticky on both sides, and (2 you have to be more careful how you iron it on.

Get beautiful, lifelike results when you use appliques to spice up quilting projects.

When you iron this stuff onto fabric, life becomes vastly easier.

It becomes much easier to fussy cut your applique shapes out
It helps to control a lot of the fraying around the edges of your shape once it is cut out
And as it is ironed onto your larger fabric it’s very helpful in positioning without pins – which cuts down on your home-style piercings!

Applique is perfect for creating mouth-watering autumn-themed centerpieces.

What Fusible Webbing Used to Be

When I first started quilting, this amazing product was in its birth pangs and I had some real disasters with it.

When I first found it, back in the days when I wasn’t quilting but rather sewing clothes for my kids, Wonder-Under was quite thick and once it was ironed onto your fabric, the fabric itself became very stiff and unworkable. It was also almost impossible not to get some of the sticky stuff on your iron, and the fusible web “un-glued” from the fabric very quickly.

So I left it alone for about 5 years.

Then one day, I decided to try sewing appliques on quilts for my nieces. I simply couldn’t think of anything else, so I reluctantly tried it, and found Wonder-Under was a very different animal from the monster in my memories.

This was one of the first projects I used Wonder-Under on, and while it still wasn’t as good as it is today – you can see the result was smooth and professional.

It had become thinner and much more flexible, for one thing. For another, the ironing process was much simpler, and the sticky stuff was good for at least a couple of days.

In the last few years it has improved even more, and now I buy it by the roll because I use so much of it.

The Best of the Best Product for Sewing Appliques on Quilts

Back when I first started there was only one brand, which was Pellon Wonder-Under. Being the single-minded individual I am, that brand name has stuck, and they still do have a great product. However, there are different types of Wonder-Under and I have tried most of them.

Soft Premium Fuse paperbacked fusible webbing on Amazon

The one I finally settled on is Soft Fuse Premium.

This was recommended to me by one of the ladies from our local quilting store. It’s much thinner and flexible than the old Wonder-Under I was using, and it controls fraying better.

Soft Fuse Premium comes in packages with a few sheets in it. It’s reasonably priced, and you can get a few and decide if you like it or not.

Or, if you are a true applique lover, you can buy an entire roll – like what you’d find stocked on the shelf of a quilt store. Soft Fuse Premium is by far the most cost-effective brand for this type of bulk purchasing. If you plan on doing quite a bit of appliqueing, the rolls are definitely the better bargain, and if you purchase them online you will save even more.

How to Make Sewing Appliques on Quilts Quick and Painless Using Princess YellowBelly’s System

Of course, being me, I don’t follow the packaging instructions on how to apply my fusible webbing – because I figured out my own way.

Ironing on material that's backed by fusible paperbacked webbing

You will need; a square piece of material a little bigger than your applique shape, a square of fusible webbing about the same size, a larger piece(s) of wax paper, and an iron.

Soft Fuse is fusible on both sides with a paper backing on one side to keep that side from fusing while you’re fusing the first side.

Just remember not to touch your hot iron to the sticky side, or put the wrong side of the paper against your ironing board. If you miss on the iron you can use handy-dandy iron cleaner to get rid of the sticky stuff in just a few minutes, but if you do this to your ironing board cover you’ll need a new one since it will never come off.

I’m currently on ironing board cover number 3…

Step-By-Step Process for Wonder-Undering Fabric Shapes

Cut a piece of Soft Fuse that fits the template(s) you will be cutting
Lay the Soft Fuse paperbacked side down on your ironing board
Cut a similarly sized piece of fabric, and lay it on top of the Soft Fuse (the back or wrong side of your fabric should be against the rough side of the Soft Fuse)
Lay wax paper over the entire project
Iron – this only takes a few seconds for cottons – but it might take longer for heavier fabrics (and it won’t work at all on velvets and fleece)
Pull the wax paper off – the excess sticky stuff will come off on the wax paper and you can throw it away
Don’t peel off the paper backing
Pin your template onto the paper backing, remembering that when you cut it out and turn it over, it will be facing the other way. Make sure it’s facing the wrong way when you cut it out. Keeping the paper backing on while you cut really helps to stabilize the fabric.
Pin all small shapes like legs, noses, etc. with very small pins, to help keep them in place as you cut
Once your shape is cut out, remove pins, peel away the paper backing
Flip your shape over (so the white side with the fusible webbing is against the top of your project) and position your fabric applique shape where you want it
Iron down carefully (this can take up to five minutes)
Sew as you please (Soft Fuse Premium maintains the stick reliably for up to a week, and it won’t shift at all as you’re sewing appliques on quilts)

I also use Soft Fuse on my fabric flowers and leaves, but this is a slightly different process. I’ll be doing a whole article on quilting with silk fabric flowers and leaves, so keep looking!