5 HAND QUILTING TECHNIQUES FROM QUILTING DAILY CREATE YOUR OWN HANDMADE QUILTS: 5 Hand Quilting Techniques from Quilting Daily 1 3 2 5 4 Art Quilting Made Easy Go Green: 1 LeSLEY RILEY 4 Eco-friendly Journal Quilting Techniques Painting with Thread: Stitching a Story NaTALYA AIKENS 2 ELLEN SCOTT Fusing 101 Home Free: Collage Your Way to Design 5 LAURA WASILOWSKI S 3 YLVIA NAYLOR CREATE YOUR OWN HANDMADE QUILTS: 5 HAND QUILTING TECHNIQUES FROM QUILTING DAILY QUILTINGARTS.COM 1 ©Interweave 5 HAND QUILTING TECHNIQUES FROM QUILTING DAILY To anyone who loves fabric and thread, through fabric collage. The unique design making a handmade quilt is often the ultimate method she describes in Home Free that creative experience. The contemplative act of begins with paper collage is easy to follow, hand quilting—needle moving rhythmically especially if you think you “can’t draw.” CREATE YOUR OWN over and under fabric—is Another easy way to begin making a pleasure even for those handcrafted quilts is by starting small and HANDMADE QUILTS: who primarily rely on using materials you have on hand, like 5 HAND QUILTING machine quilting enjoy. But Natalya Aikens does in Go Green: Eco- you don’t have to know friendly Journal Quilting Techniques. TECHNIQUES FROM how to quilt by hand to Using her guidelines for making small, QUILTING DAILY create a handmade, quilted weekly handmade quilts with recycled piece. Many contemporary materials will give you the freedom to have EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Pokey Bolton art quilters add hand fun and experiment. quilting and embroidery EDITOR Cate Coulacos If you’d rather skip a lot of the functional to their fabric art. The hand stitching lends a Prato personal touch to a handcrafted quilt. sewing and focus on hand quilting the details, or simply don’t have that much time In our free eBook, Create Your Own to sew, Laura Wasilowski offers a step-by-step CREATIVE SERVICES Handmade Quilts: 5 Hand Quilting guide to fusing quilts in Fusing 101. Her DIVISION ART DIRECTOR Larissa Davis Techniques from Quilting Daily, we give you lesson includes a project for you to use your five different takes on making handmade newfound fusing skills to make your own PHOTOGRAPHERS Larry Stein quilts. In Art Quilting Made Easy, Lesley handcrafted quilt. Korday Studios Riley shows how you can make a simple yet So you can see, no matter what your interest, beautiful homemade quilt with a few simple Projects and information are for inspira- tools. Lesley also describes how to hand quilt Create Your Own Handmade Quilts: 5 Hand tion and personal use only. Quilting Arts your piece in different ways to add dimension Quilting Techniques from Quilting Daily will and interest. give you the tools and inspiration you need Magazine is not responsible for any li- to create your own handmade quilts. ability arising from errors, omissions, or If you enjoy a lot of hand stitching, you’ll love Ellen Scott’s technique for using mistakes contained in this eBook, and stitching, scraps, and small embellishments readers should proceed cautiously, espe- to make a colorful narrative homemade cially with respect to technical information. quilt. In Painting with Thread, Stitching a Interweave grants permission to pho- Story, Ellen shows how this kind of quilt’s tocopy any patterns published in this handmade appearance gives it a homespun, POKEY BOLTON issue for personal use only. heartfelt quality. Sylvia Naylor’s homemade Editorial Director quilts are literally that: quilts depicting homes PUT MORE IN YOUR LIFE fabric texture dXb\fm\ip. 28 FROM MISTAKE TO MASTERPIECE QUILTING ARTS MAGAZINE® explores ideas, textiles, and techniques for related to embellished and contemporary art quilting. Inside, tips QUILTentering SHOWS you’ll find design inspiration, step-by-step directions, gorgeous from photo graphy, and for developing your personal style, at photo motivation to all skill levels. ART QUILT p. 14 Thread sketching made easy p. 46 800.406.5283 (U.S. & Canada) quiltingarts.com 760.291.1519 (International) QUILTING ARTS MAGAZINE®, P.O. Box 469087, Escondido, CA 92046-9350 CREATE YOUR OWN HANDMADE QUILTS: 5 HAND QUILTING TECHNIQUES FROM QUILTING DAILY QUILTINGARTS.COM 2 ©Interweave 5 HAND QUILTING TECHNIQUES FROM QUILTING DAILY ADAPTED FROM ART QUILTING QUILTING ARTS MAGAZINE FALL 2004 made easy BY LESLEY RILEY omething has kept you Sfrom making an art quilt. Maybe it’s the word “art” that has stopped you. Perhaps the endless products and embellishments seem overwhelming. Whatever the reason, there is only one solution—just begin. With a few simple tools, a little fabric, and a desire to play, you can create a small art quilt of your own design. Don’t let a lack of formal training hold you back. The most important quality that you can bring to your art quilt is your own vision. An art quilt is an expression of your own individuality. It can draw on traditional patterns and techniques, but the end result is a totally new—unique to you—design. The beads, paints, transfers and other applications are there for your use if the spirit moves you—if not, save them for another day. In fact, because art quilts are not meant for “use,” and therefore will not be washed, you are free to experiment with “Thinking Chair” • 7" × 12" CREATE YOUR OWN HANDMADE QUILTS: 5 HAND QUILTING TECHNIQUES FROM QUILTING DAILY QUILTINGARTS.COM 3 ©Interweave 5 HAND QUILTING TECHNIQUES FROM QUILTING DAILY non-traditional methods and is important, but it should not inhibit 2. The quilt top is created by one of materials. There is no right or wrong. your creativity, especially when you three methods: piecing, appliqué, are just starting out. Perfectionism or whole cloth. To get you started, I will lead you should not be pursued at the expense through the processes I used to make 3. The three layers are held together of creativity, learning, and enjoying two small and simple art quilts. by stitching, tying, or fusing. yourself. When you are ready to move on to You do not need to own a sewing bigger, more complex things, there I like to tell my students, “If you’re not machine to make your first art quilt. are many excellent resources available having fun, you’re doing something Just like our ancestors, you can sew (see “Resources”). You may even wrong.” Confidence, certainty, and your quilt entirely by hand. But unlike decide you want to take a class on expertise come from doing what you those women before us, you can design or learn about specific quilting love over and over and over again. So now create a quilt entirely by fusing. techniques that will enhance your new let’s begin. Fusing is a term for joining fabric passion. But keep this in mind—many Art quilts generally follow the using an adhesive material that is wonderful art quilts have been created same construction techniques as a activated by heat from an iron. Quilt by self-taught artists and quilters. traditional quilt: fabrics backed with a sheet of fusible Don’t let a lack of formal training hold webbing, such as Wonder Under, can you back. The most important quality 1. The quilt is composed of three be fused together to create a no-sew that you can bring to your art quilt is layers: top, batting, and backing, art quilt. Optional hand-stitching can your own vision. Good workmanship also known as a quilt “sandwich.” add depth and detail. APPLIQUÉD QUILT Appliqué is a French word meaning 1. I scanned and printed an old photo “to apply.” In an appliquéd quilt, small onto fabric treated for ink-jet pieces of fabric are applied to a larger, printers (see Resources). background fabric by sewing or fusing. appliqued quilt 2. Using the photo as a starting MATERIALS Shapes can be recognizable, such as point, I chose a blue background a door or tree, geometric, or simply fabric as the base for my appliqué • An assortment of fabrics in freeform shapes. Traditionally, any coordinating colors because blue is complimentary fabric that lies under another piece of to the orange in the photo and it • Ink-jet printer fabric fabric and is not seen is trimmed away provided a good, strong contrast. • Copyright-free image to reduce bulk when hand quilting. Three other fabrics in blue and • Scanner With my appliqué method, I find orange tones were layered behind • Ink-jet printer that trimming is not necessary. To the photo to offset it from the • Straight pins prevent layers of fabric from slipping, background, and the composition • Fabric scissors (Scissors that have I use a walking foot attachment on was pinned in place. I tucked small been used to cut paper may be too my sewing machine. A walking foot pieces of my chosen border fabrics dull for fabric cutting.) is an attachment or a built-in feature under the image to visually pull • Wonder Under on your sewing machine that feeds the outside edges of the quilt in • Batting (commercial batting, flannel, the fabric layers evenly through the towards the photo. or felt) machine and prevents the layers from • Hand-sewing needle or sewing slipping. If you do not have a walking 3. Using a straight stitch and my machine foot, use more pins to prevent slipping sewing machine, I stitched down • Embellishments or puckering, or fuse all layers before all of the fabric layers to the machine stitching. background fabric, starting with CREATE YOUR OWN HANDMADE QUILTS: 5 HAND QUILTING TECHNIQUES FROM QUILTING DAILY QUILTINGARTS.COM 4 ©Interweave 5 HAND QUILTING TECHNIQUES FROM QUILTING DAILY the image and working outward. the plaid fabric (a commercial also serves as the quilt backing and I started with the topmost layer, fabric consisting of already pieced edge finish: Cut a piece of batting and stitched the exposed edges of plaids.) Cut 4 strips, each 1.5" 2.5" inches larger than finished every layer.