Dec
3
Yes, it’s beginning to look a lot like that time of year! A very fun month full of nostalgic holiday music, scheming and shopping for our dear ones, and get-togethers that all seem to happen on the same day. This year it’s Saturday the 12th. You?
Here’s a little Christmas roundup from the blog.
A few years ago, genius designer Holly Mabutas put up the most darling free Santa pattern over on her blog. It’s still there, go check it out!
And here’s a photo tutorial of how I handled a large piece of white appliquéd over other fabrics, without shadow-through. The hard sauce on the Plum Pudding!
Holiday cheers,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
Kay’s Etsy Shop
Dec
28
What I did over Christmas vacation
Filed Under Fusible web, Holiday, Machine appliqué, Photo tutorials | 7 Comments
First of all, thank you so much to everyone who responded with warm enthusiasm for my foster kitten stories. There’s a followup… but I’ll save that for later.
Several of the projects that appear in my book A Merry Little Christmas to Appliqué are on loan to my pal Debby at the Quilter’s Faire in Palm Desert, California.
When a traveling quilt-show vendor specializing in Christmas expressed an interest in carrying the book, I thought I’d make another version of the project that’s the most popular one… Plum Pudding!
 The original. |
It was loads of fun rummaging for the fabrics, and also a little scary. It’s been awhile now since the book came out, but in the scrap bag I found a few leftover squares of the original fabrics used for the patched background! I also had enough of the red sashing and all three fabrics that were used for the puddings!
In my files, I even found the original pattern and tracing-paper overlay! Since the pattern is blown up 200%, this saved me a step. That’s why I keep stuff. You never know.
Once I’d pulled all the fabrics, I started thinking about the great expanse of white that makes up the ‘hard sauce’ part of the pattern. It would be covering a weensy bit of the brown, and also the patched background, and I didn’t want those to shadow through.
Usually, for machine appliqué I would use a double layer to create a light-over-dark motif by first fusing two layers of fabric together and then using that composed fabric to create the motif. This time, the area was so large, and I didn’t want the stiffness from the extra fusible. I thought I’d try something new.
I started out by making two motifs just the same, both with the inside of the fusible web cut out.
Back
Front
I removed the paper backing from both, placed one on top of the other on a nontick appliqué pressing sheet, and tacked them together with a hot iron.
If there are are inconsistencies in the two shapes, just use your scissors and trim them to match.
A little haircut needed here.
All trimmed and tidy.
Now the motif is double-layer and with no fusible web in the middle to make it stiff! Try it! It worked for me.
Stitched block.
Finished project: Plum Pudding 2
Until next time,
Kay
By Kay Mackenzie
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