Patriotic Salvage optional border applique

Just a bit of extra, if you should be inclined to add some applique.

This is completely machine done, and is using wool felt -- just cause I like the look that felt has on top of cotton -- and it is pretty quick to add on.
You can do this even after your quilt is quilted, but I usually do it before, as with most other types of applique.
My first step to this type of applique is to use a stabilizer behind the fabric as it helps to keep the fabric from stretching or rippling when you machine applique.

I generally use a non-woven fusible light weight interfacing.  It's purpose is not to add bulk but to keep the fabric from stretching.

Next I cut out the applique shapes from wool felt -- I have been collecting wool skirts (usually from the second hand store, but sometimes friends give me their old wool clothes) .  I wash and dry the wool after taking the clothes apart and they shrink to the point where when used for applique there is no need to turn under a hem.

In this case, I am making leaves to decorate the border, it will be a simple vine on the edge of the quilt, so to cut the leaves without a pattern, I simply cut a strip of felt that is about as wide as I want my leave shapes to be, so the strip of felt (3 strips in my case) are between 2 and 2 1/2 inches wide.

I mark the approximate shape that I want, some wider some skinnier, with a chalk marker, and then I cut them out.  Depending how many you want to applique you will have to decide how many you want to make.

If this is your first time trying out this method, I would suggest that you make a test piece of fabric say about 6 inches square and do a small section following my instructions -- you can decide if you like the effect or not, then continue if you like on the border of the quilt.

The border, because it needs a vine also requires either long narrow cuts of the same wool felt or a similar colour of yarn.  If you use yarn, be aware that the yarn stretches and causes the fabric to scrunch up, so you may have to "break" some of the stitches and pull out the 'gathers"  or if you use narrow strips of felt, it will be more difficult to accurately sew it neatly to the fabric.  Just sew slowly and you will be fine...

With the yarn I insert it into a couching foot, so it follows where I aim my sewing machine foot.

When I use narrow strips of felt, I use a zig zag stitch and hold it in place just ahead of the needle using a japanese chop stick (they have a pointyer point).

So as you can see, the interfacing has held the fabric quite nicely with no stretch apparent.

Now to applique the wool felt leaves.

Change your foot on the machine to a darning foot or as some call it the free motion foot.

Beginning at a convenient place, use either a narrow zigzag or a straight stitch, free motion stitch around the edge of each leaf, and to give it just a touch of realism, 'draw' some veins on the leaf.

Continue to add leaves as you see fit, as many or as few as you like.  You will find that because it is so quick, you will be quite generous as to how many leaves you are wanting to applique.

Finally, here is one corner of the quilt border with the simple vine applique.  With Practice, you may find yourself adding this applique to everything!

Finally, for those who have followed along with this Mystery, I would love to see how your projects have come out.  Please email me a photo of the finished, or almost finished quilt and tell me whether or not it is okay to use your picture on a future post of the quilts made from this design.  Send photos to jswb4com@yahoo.ca.

Thanks, so much for playing along.

I am planning to do another Mystery for the Labour Day weekend, so check back over the Summer for exactly when and what you will need to follow along on that one.

A note about copying -- I have taken the time to create this mystery quilt along with the time to write, calculate and photograph the steps, so I would greatly appreciate it if you do not download or copy my work here. This mystery is free on my blog and if you think you must keep the pattern, and instructions for yourself, your store customers or your friends I would prefer that you donot give away my work. I feel that I am the author and if you want to share my work with others, there will be available after this weekend a PDF file that I will email or print and mail to you for a small fee. Otherwise, please visit my blog for these instructions...

Patriotic Salvage Part 4

The design, Revealed...

Try not to scroll down to the bottom of the page -- it really is more fun to work out the finished design as it progresses...

** to view the photos in more detail, click on each and it will be enlarged, to go back to the page, simply click on your webbrowsers back button up on the left top corner of your browser...

Now, we have done the major part of the sewing -- it is a matter of putting together the three stacks that you should have left.

When I photographed these stacks I put pieces of tape on them to give them new names, without realizing I had no way of typing those symbols and posting them to the blog!  So there are two main sections that you should have 16 of each (the small strata of 4 pieces sewn together, and the sorta log cabin square) plus 4 B1 squares still unsewn.  One pile is a triangle symbol the other a square symbol  -- check out the picture...

Now, remember that orientation is incredibly important in this design so carefully follow the instruction, referring to the photos, when in doubt.

Proceed to sew 8 of the triangle sections to the square sections;  if in doubt, check out the photo below that shows the way the two sections will be placed as they go under the machine needle.

Making sure to line up carefully the seam lines -- if you have been pressing your seams  towardward the darker fabric, the seams should nicely "lock" together and fit exactly.  It is quite important to keep things inline so that the design doesn't look off-kilter, so try your best to make sure the seams line up.

Now take 8 more of the square symbol section and sew it to the other side of the triangle section.   As you can see in the above photo the square symbol section is orientated differently.  The E2 piece is at the top and the C3 piece continues the design across from the triangle section.  Make sure you have 8 sections exactly like this sewn together.  Press and set these 8 pieces aside for a few moments.

Now you will be sewing the rest of the triangle sections to the last 4 B1 squares.  Sew each of the triangle sections so that the 3 B1 squares form a long centre section.  See the photo below.  You will have 4 of these when you have sewn them as shown.

Once this section is sewn, you will now have 4 of the long narrow strip and 8 of the larger rectangle section.   If you have done a fair amount of piecing of blocks, I think you can see how these last pieces fit together.

 Sew the long narrow strip to the side of the wider piece as shown, and then follow with sewing the second wider rectangle to the other side...

You should have 4 complete blocks.  This block is a traditional Japanese pattern, actually named Knotted Square.   Now from this point your choice of setting is optional.  In my case I chose to sew the four blocks (finally the orientation doesn't matter, because it is a symetrical block and all the outside edges are the same) to make a larger square.  Each individual block will measure about 15" square -- I say about, because everyone sews the 1/4 inch seam slightly different -- also because the pieces fit together in this particular way, to make an exact 16" square would have meant sewing in 1/8" increments I did adjust the cuts so that we did not have to deal with 1/8" measurements.   I do have available how to cut the pieces for this block in two other sizes.  In a 12" finished block (the D1 pieces are incredibly small!) and I am working on a extra large size block of 24" square.

Here is the 4 blocks about to be sewn to create a small table topper, without borders, it will measure about 30" square.  If you prefer, these four blocks can be set so that they form a long table runner (I forgot to take a picture of them that way) or even if you are so inclined you could make a larger finished square by setting the four blocks on point (which would mean figuring out the setting triangles around the sides ).

I have chosen to create my blocks into a square with a border,  my border consists of an inner "stopper" border, which is the length of fabric "C" cut at 1 1/2 inch wide, then an outer border using my "A" fabric cut at 3inches wide.  

There is an optional border applique that I will give you the instruction for later today or early tomorrow, if you wish to add it.  I am not so far ahead of you in sewing this project.  So must sew and quilt it before I show you the final complete project.  I will be making straight fold binding using my "B" fabric.

I hope that you have enjoyed doing this project, and that you found it to be easy to follow instructions and that you can make use of what you have created here. 

Thanks, EVERYONE for following along.

Patriotic Salvage Part 3

Are you ready for some more sewing?
Today's Sewing is going to be broken up into two parts -- just a little break, so you don't have to sew all in one session and also because sometimes too many photos on one post makes for slow downloads...
Well, here goes, ready or not.

First you will go back to the D1/D2 pieces that was the last that you sewed yesterday.
You will sew 16 C3 pieces to the 16  D1/D2 piece -- you must sew it so that the C3 is correctly orientated so carefully check the photo and make sure you sew exactly the same

press.

Next you will be using the remaining 16 C3 pieces and sew them to the section (D1/D2/C3) piece that you just finished.  Again, make sure that the orientation is exactly as shown in the photo.

As you can see, the second set of 16 C3's are sew on the side of the previous section so that the C3 is sewn touching the D1 fabric and the C3 fabric.

Now, you will be sewing 16 B1 pieces to the section we are working on, so that the B1 is sewn next to the last C3's that you sewed.  See photo above.

Your next step is to pick up all your E2 pieces and sew these to the section you just finished (D1/D2/C3/C3/B1)

The photo below shows how to orientate the pieces so they are correctly done, make sure when you put the pieces on your machine that they look likethe photo below.

Next you will go back to find the previously sewn A1/C2 section - and you will sew the 16  A1/C2 sections to the section that you have been working on (D1/D2/C3/C3/B1/E2)

And here is how it will look while you sew the two sections together.

Sew these and Press and you should have a stack of 16 that look just like the photo below.

Now we are taking a little break, cause truthfully, I have some puppy babysitting to do -- it really is impossible to work on the computer and keep an eye on a puppy who is not quite house trained and has just too much fun with just about anything left laying about in house or garden!

Edited in at 2pm Pacific Time...

We will finish up tomorrow -- there have been a number intrusions today, things that are taking too much time...

There's not THAT much more to do tomorrow -- well, it doesn't include the quilting and binding which you will have to finish up on your own.  So hold your breath til tomorrow for the last few steps...  About an hour and a half more sewing...  less if you are quick...

Patriotic Salvage Part 2

I slept in -- Canada Day, Yesterday, was a busy, busy day!

So.

Lets Sew.

This should take about an hour or so of sewing, not long...

Check back to the stacks of cut pieces that you made yesterday.

First sew 16  B1 to  16 C3  
Sew 16  C1 to the   16  B1/C3 unit
Sew  16  C2 to the  16  B1/C3/C1 unit

Now you have 16  strata units that should look the same as the photo above.  Check and recheck the order of your pieces -- remember anything out of place and the pattern will not show through properly...
Press so that the seams are pressed toward the darker fabrics.
Set these aside for now.

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Your second strata unit to sew is to sew together 16 A1 to  16 C2 units

Just exactly as shown above, again press your seams toward the darker fabric.

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Your third section to sew together today is to take the stack of D1's and sew them to all of the D2's so now you have 16 of these little D1/D2 units and you are finished sewing for today...

Press, toward the darker fabric.
You are done for today.

I hope you are finding this interesting so far -- and that it doesn't take too much time on this very busy weekend...

A note about copying -- I have taken the time to create this mystery quilt along with the time to write, calculate and photograph the steps, so I would greatly appreciate it if you do not download or copy my work here. This mystery is free on my blog and if you think you must keep the pattern, and instructions for yourself, your store customers or your friends I would prefer that you donot give away my work. I feel that I am the author and if you want to share my work with others, there will be available after this weekend a PDF file that I will email or print and mail to you for a small fee. Otherwise, please visit my blog for these instructions...

Patriotic Salvage Part 1

Good Morning!

Just a few little things about this little mystery.  This is the first time I have "invented" a mystery quilt so if you have any questions or my explaination is not clear, please email me at jswb4com at yahoo dot com  or leave a comment on this blog as I will be sticking fairly close to the computer for the next four days.  I don't want to hold you up in your progress if you are working along with me.  I would most dislike to see one of you become frustrated and end up with a half-done project.

Another thing I realized, that perhaps you might need to think about too.  I live on the West Coast of Canada, so as things go -- time that is -- where I live is halfway into the day for some of you.   So if you are very far east of me, this mystery will open to you much later in the day.   As it is, I am sitting at my computer now, just a few minutes before 5am PT --- but that is just about ususual for me.  I get up EARLY for most people.

Patriotic Salvage Mystery Quilt

Refer back to this post for fabric selection suggestions
Cutting your Fabrics

As you start to cut, a good idea is to have some masking tape so that you can mark each stack of cut pieces so they don't become mixed up.  You will be cutting some fabrics in different colours in the same size, so you want to make sure to put the right fabric in the right place when sewing them together -- IT MATTERS TO THE DESIGN.  All Measurements include the seam allowance.  This block is not USUAL so the measurements may seem odd, but they are accurate and you MUST sew them accurately with 1/4 inch seam allowance.

From your Main Background fabric ( all fabric in this colour will be labled 1 from now on, and the colour will be the number so all background fabrics will be 1 and the cut size will be the letter)  Thats probably backwards from what everyone else does, but, thats the way it is here...

I am assuming that you are using full yardage cuts -- if you are using fat quarters or other scraps you will need to simply make your cuts as each is measured.

It is not recommended that you use a directional fabric -- for example, flowers that all go in the same direction, as this may make the final design less effective.   Stripes too could be difficult, but if you perhaps make this same design a second time you might want to try using a stripe and cutting it so that it follows itself (you will have to figure which way to make the cuts on your own)

You will first need to cut 6 strips width of fabric 3 inches wide from your background fabric -- your #1

Then from 3 these strips,  Cut 36  -  3 x 3 inch squares -- there will be a partial strip left over, which you will use next.  Label these 3 x3 inch squares  B1

Cut 16 rectangles from the 3inch wide strips so that it is 1 3/4 inch cross cuts, each rectangle in other words will be 3 x 1 3/4 inches, label this stack C1

Still using the strips you have cut, cut 16 rectangles that are 3 inches x 5 1/2 inches, label this stack A1

You may or may not have enough of the 3inch wide strip depending on the width of your fabric.  What is left of the 3" wide fabric, measure and cut it to 1 3/4 inch wide strip -- you may need to cut a further 1 3/4 inch wide strip from your background fabric. 

Cut 16 - squares that measure 1 3/4 inch x 1 3/4 inch  Label this stack D1

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onto the next fabric cuts, these cuts will be from your medium value print -- make sure it is a good contrast from your background print.  This fabric will be #2

Cut 5 strips, the width of your #2 fabric, 3 strips 1 3/4 inch wide  and 2 strips 3 inch wide.

From the 1 3/4 inch wide strips, cut 16 pieces that are 6 3/4 inches long, so they are 1 3/4 inch x 6 3/4 inch, label these E2

Cut 16 squares from a 1 3/4 inch wide strip, so each measures 1 3/4 inch x 1 3/4 inch -- label these D2

From the 3" wide strips cut 32 rectangles that measure 3 inches x 1 3/4 inch each, label these C2

There will be left over after these cuts.

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Fabric #3 - again, this should have a strong contrast from both of the other two fabrics, in my case it is the lightest fabric.

You will need to cut 2 strips 3inches wide from your third fabric. Then make crosscuts of 1 3/4" or

Cut 48 - pieces 3 inches x 1 3/4 inches

Label this stack C3

All this cutting should take you about 1 hour, or as much as 1 1/2 hours, depending on what you are cutting from.  Check back to the above photo to make sure that you have the correct number of stacks and then check each stack to make sure you have the correct number of pieces in each stack.  Thats it for today.   We start sewing tomorrow...

A note about copying -- I have taken the time to create this mystery quilt along with the time to write, calculate and photograph the steps, so I would greatly appreciate it if you do not download or copy my work here.  This mystery is free on my blog and if you think you must keep the pattern, and instructions for yourself, your store customers or your friends I would prefer that you donot give away my work.  I feel that I am the author and if you want to share my work with others, there will be available after this weekend a PDF file that I will email or print and mail to you for a small fee.  Otherwise, please visit my blog for these instructions...

Patriotic Salvage Mystery -- early prep

To make some of the prep work for the mystery quilt on the upcoming long weekend a bit easier, I thought I would give you some ideas of how to choose your fabrics.

The 3 fabrics you see just above will be what I plan to use.  These are fairly old fabrics from my stash, they are not quite the RED And WHITE of the Canadian Flag, but this is what I have.  In this case the dark brick red is going to be my main, or background fabric, with the pink and very light polka dot as the two contrast fabrics.

Here are a few more variations of fabric choices.  As you can see you do need to choose three fabrics for this project, each fabric should be quite a high contrast from the other two.  Choose either the light or the dark for your main or background; with the middle or medium fabric as your "important" contrast.

Your secondary contrast will be using the least amount of fabric, say in the above choices, the blue is the secondary contrast, so you will use less than a fat quarter, the white may be your background and will use the most fabric, probably about 3/4 of a meter, and the burgundy is your first contrast and will use about 1/3 to 1/2 meter.

This last choice of fabrics might be an interesting christmas choice. So keep in mind that as long as you have three strongly contrasting fabrics they should work very well in this project.  Just because it is called Patriotic Salvage, doesn't mean you have to go with these colours -- perhaps dark blue, mauve and a very light yellow -- wouldn't that be a pretty one. 
Also for those wanting to make this a scrappy adventure I would suggest that for the maximum effect o this pattern that you should stick with not just the choice of light to dark, but if you choose as your background say light blues, you should stick to perhaps a variety of light blues all very closely related, the same goes for the other contrast fabrics, if one is a red contrast, make sure that you use a number of similar reds in the positions called for.

I would also like you to consider fabric for to  border  this top.  It is planned to have a single border, and you will need about 1/2 meter of fabric for it...  You might want to use the same fabric as your main background fabric, or something that co ordinates but that is completely different.  The border will have a interesting technique and will be the last step of the project and does require, two more supply items that I hope you can gather from your stash --- some worsted weight yarn about 2 meters or less in length, any brand, can be acrylic or even cotton, but should be a green, light or dark or in between, then you will need some felt -- as little as 8" square and it can be real wool felt or just the synthetic felt that kids use, try to match it fairly closely to your green yarn.    

Patriotic Salvage

Is anyone up for doing a Mystery Quilt?  I hope so, after you hear some of the details, it may just entice you to take part!

Patriotic Salvage is what it is going to be called -- This year, July 1, the Canada Day celebration is on Thursday, and July 4th , Independence Day, is on Sunday so if you are going to stay home and enjoy your own back yard how about taking on a 4 day Mystery Project?   This will be a small quilt, with some fairly small pieces, but we will be using an interesting piecing technique that will keep your pieces accurate and inline.

Supplies that you will want to have on hand:
Fabric - cottons work best - as described in the next paragraph
about 1 meter/yard of light weight, non woven, fusible interfacing -- must be fusible!
Rotary Cutter, Cutting Mat, Acrylic Rulers of various sizes, but AT LEAST a 6 x 24 inch, works for everything, scissors, thread, sewing machine and all that goes with it.

As the name of this Mystery Project suggests, it will be somewhat Patriotic and the idea is to work from your stash.  If you are Canadian, you will want to check through your stash for REDS and Whites -- reds from pink to dark red, and Americans, I would suggest using light blues and dark reds or light reds and pinks with dark blues.  Of course if you do not want to follow those colour choices, you will be looking for lights and darks -- that is very light and medium to dark of any colour, so this is basically a two colour quilt -- or you could just use two colours, but using salvage fabrics from your stash will be part of the whole idea -- oh, and you will not need more than about 1 metre (a little over a yard) of light and  about the same of dark fabric choices...

The project will not take up more than a couple hours each of the days of the long weekend, starting on Thursday and ending with finishing details and suggestions of purposing this little quilt on Sunday, and that way, if you need you can use the Monday for final touch-up and finishing...  The Project will be appropriate for Beginner to more experienced sewer and you may just add to your repertoire of quilting knowlege.

Hows about that?
I sure would appreciate it if you leave a little comment on this post to let me know if you are interested and plan to work along on that weekend.  Thanks!

PS - there will be no charge for the pattern or tips that go along with this project but if you do not work along with the project, it may not be on this blog after about July 8...