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Learning Curve
A "Baltimore" Album Quilt (which wasn't made anywhere
near Baltimore...)
I jokingly refer to my mother as "the Queen of Applique." She's very good and I've always loved the look of traditional applique, but could never do it myself.
When I was visiting my sister one Christmas, I bought Elly Sienkiewicz's book, "Baltimore Beauties and Beyond" so I could try and learn to applique. Unfortunately, I bought Book 2 and it made applique, especially Baltimore Album blocks, seem overwhelming. A year or so later, I found Book 1.
I was between projects, having just finished "Lost Cats Found", and I decided to take a stab at applique. I started with the first project in the book, a block called Fleur di Lis. I guess I didn't read vey well, I used red pencil to mark the pattern on the freezer paper, but some of it bled off (and can still be faintly seen.)
Worse than that, I didn't realize that I should try to match the thread being used to the fabric being appliqued. I used white because I used white for everything. Luckily, I had a very small, even, whipstitch. Even though you can see the white thread in the real project, you can't in the photograph.
My choice of fabric actually wasn't. I think it was the smallest piece of fabric that fit and wasn't already "committed to another project. Obviously, this was not going to be a traditional Baltimore Album quilt.
I was on the fence about including this block in the final quilt
because I didn't like the white stitching, but when I decided to call
the quilt "Learning Curve" I knew I had to include
it.
Following the lessons in Elly S's book, I moved onto this wreath block, supposedly a Wreath of Strawberry Leaves. Once again, I used white thread, but the lesson was to learn "ladder stitch" which I found I really liked for applique.
Because I still wasn't committed to an entire quilt, I chose a "scrap" fabric. It wasn't until much, much later I realized both the first and second blocks were green.
My problem with this block was that I got bored. Once I mastered the ladder-stitch, each leaf-set was pretty much the same as the last. I put away the project for a couple of months, which, of course, turned into years...
When I resumed, I had to iron the freezer paper back onto the applique fabric. Ironing shrank the template in places so it refused to line up. I did a few more leave-sets and put it away again.
I think that even though I did one-and-a-half of these blocks, I REALLY learned to applique by making "My Heart is in The Work," a Dear Jane quilt. Each of those blocks were only 4-1/2" finished, as opposed to the 15-inch blocks in this album quilt so they finished up fast.
Eventually, after finishing "Heart..." I decided to try finishing this quilt, which meant finishing this block. I told myself I would do one leaf-set every day while watching TV until the block was finished.
It only took two years.
While working on the Dear Jane quilt, I decided I needed to join a "quilting community". Since I've never been a big joiner, I decided to simply join an on-line mailinglist instead of a regular quilting guild.
One of the techniques that was popular was "back basting." The account is somewhat garbled, but I believe Jeana Kimball popularized it.
The steps are easy:
- First, draw your pattern on the back of your block. Because you can't see it from the front, you can use a darker pencil than you ordinarily would if you were drawing the pattern on the fabric to be appliqued.
- Next place the fabric to be appliqued, face down on the light-box.
- Place the background fabric with the drawn pattern facing up (the "front side" of your appliqued-to fabric facing down), making sure that there is enough of a seam allowance around the fabric to be appliqued showing, (This is what makes a light-table so usedful.)
- Stitch the two fabrics together on the sewing line with a medium running stitch and a larger needle in a contrasting thread. (Contrast the fabric to the appliqued.)
- Needle-turn from the front using the running stitch as a turning guide.
Of course, this means I was no longer following the lessons in the BB&B1 book, so I just picked an applique block from the back, in this case, Star of Hearts, which would have been lesson 4. I also don't know why I picked red, since the other two blocks were green.