After all the work I put into the appliqué on the Diamond Jubilee wall hanging, I had to work out the best way of quilting around the edges before I launched into the free-motion quilting.
The ideal foot to use was the adjustable cording foot, usually used for zips. Not only is it adjustable, but also it is hinged, so it rides easily over the inevitable bumps.
The red arabesque at the top of the hanging was nothing but curves and corners, but the cording foot made relatively easy work of it.
I was pleased with finished effect - the blanket stitch edging really stood out in relief.
There is always the fear that the dye will run and that all your hard work will be ruined. Even when fabric has been washed, a dodgy dye can still catch you out.
Once I had bought my collection of colours from Oakshott Fabrics I cut a tiny strip from the edge of each piece and then sewed the strips to a piece of white cotton. Then I washed and dried the test strips, ironing them while damp, to see if any of the colours ran.
I made one test strip before I had washed all the fabric pieces, and a second test strip after washing the fabric. So on one test strip the tiny strips of colour were being washed for the first time, and on the other they were being washed for the second time. The third test strip is of a few additional colours from Oakshott fabrics and a strip of the selvedge of the backing material I used for the Diamond Jubilee wall hanging.
Only one of the colours, one of the dark reds, ran ever so slightly. But I wasn't worried by this, because I had subjected the test strips to some serious abuse - pouring boiling water over them, standing them in the hot water for an hour or so, giving one of the test strips a blast in the microwave to heat the water back up again, leaving the strip lying soggy on a plate for hours. I worked really hard to get that red to run.
So all told, provided the finished quilt is never left in a leaking attic, I am confident that the colours will hold fast.
The strips are also jolly handy for colour matching when you go shopping for threads and matching fabrics.
For a long time I was looking around for a fairly lightweight cotton in a good range of colours suitable for appliqué. In the end I found exactly what I wanted at Oakshott Fabrics. For me the added bonus was that they weren't that far away - a quick zip up the motorway to Gloucester, and I spent a happy hour or so picking the right colours for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Quilt.
Here are the colours I have used, together with the two shades of background fabric I bought elsewhere.
The purple is now trimmed approximately an eighth of an inch from the stitching and the edge finished with blanket stitch. It is best to trim a little at a time to reduce the risk of fraying. For the blanket stitch I have been using four strands of stranded embroidery cotton. With the blanket stitch you can either use a contrasting colour for decorative effect, as I have here, or a colour to blend in with the appliqué shape.
So there it is - easy! If anyone gives this method a try, please let me know how you get on!
Once all the machine stitching is finished, tear all the paper away. The paper is surprisingly strong, so put your finger over the stitching as you tear the paper to prevent it pulling the stitches.
It's good fun taking away the paper from outside the design first, so the design shows up with the paper that is left. It's nice to see the whole thing taking shape.
Third and last stage tomorrow!
First you need to prepare a stencil of your design. I use ordinary greaseproof paper as tracing paper to trace the design.
Next, using the sewing machine, transfer the design onto a stencil. I use brown greaseproof paper for the stencil. Put a thick needle in the machine, an old blunt one is ideal. Put the tracing on top of the stencil paper and follow the line of the tracing so that the design appears as a line of perforations on the stencil.
The reason I don't use the actual tracing as the stencil is that I don't want to risk transferring traces of pencil onto my work.
The top picture shows the stencil with the dates that appear at the bottom of the wall hanging that I lent to the pub for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee party. It is pinned into position on top of the purple, which is laid over the cream background.
Then it is time to machine sew through all three layers.
Stage 2 coming tomorrow...
NB Note for our transatlantic friends. For some strange reason you know greaseproof paper as parchment.
Old appliqué quilts always look so beautiful, especially the ones lovingly stitched by hand. Anyone who sits down to do endless hours of needleturn has my boundless admiration.
Off and on over the years I have scoured books looking for a method of appliqué that wouldn't take me several decades to complete, and which wouldn't end up looking modern. Any method that involved spray-on starch, iron-on backing or zigzag were automatically out as being contrary to my vintage principles. What I wanted was a reasonably quick and easy method using straight stitch machines, where I could do fairly complex shapes and not have the horror of turning under tiny weeny hems. I never found a book that gave me the answer.
Eventually I thought up my own method. I won't claim that it is original, because the result at times looks so 1930s I can't believe that sooner or later I won't find an old book or magazine that shows how to do it.
So here is the result. The photo shows the top part of the Diamond Jubilee wall hanging. Over the next few posts I will show how it was done...
Hello to Jessica Bohannon! - Jessica has her grandmother's treadle, a Singer 66 redeye treadle. Go to her blog and admire it!
The pub was packed on 4th June. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee coincided with the first anniversary of the pub reopening after being renovated. The landlady made a fabulous Union Jack cake...
... and in the nick of time I finished a wall hanging that took pride of place in the restaurant for about ten days.
Being a true vintage girl and in a patriotic frame of mind, I used only Singers (made in Scotland) for this project - my 1927 99K (hand machine) for the applique, and all the quilting was done on the 15K treadle.
Welcome to Janice Jackson!
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