folk quilt appliqué
20 IRRESISTIBLE PROJECTS TO BRIGHTEN YOUR HOME
Clare Kingslake
Introduction
As I look out of the window on to the garden and see how the sunlight casts shadows on the plants I marvel at the different colours, shapes, subtleties and harmony. Rustic scenes such as these inspire me to create my quilts and my work is a sort of homage to the earth, a remembrance of times when life was simpler and slower, when we were children lying on our tummies, looking up through the grass at the insects or watching the birds in the trees. Appliqué allows me to recreate scenes like these in a way that plain piecing does not.
Whether using cotton fabric or felt, my appliqué designs try to capture the innocence and wonder of those times, and I find that my ideas are conveyed more readily through a folk-art style. Layering appliqué shapes, adding embroidery by machine or hand and then quilting, all play a part to create something beautiful. Drawing on a palette of soft, country colours there is sure to be something here to brighten up your home throughout the year. There are nineteen irresistible projects, from quick table mats and bags to more ambitious wall hangings and quilts.
At the back of the book the Techniques section describes all the hand and machine techniques needed for the projects, with emphasis on different types of appliqué, including needle turn and using freezer paper, templates and fusible web. Most of the projects use templates so before you start a project refer to Using Templates for important advice.
Each project has instructions for the mix of techniques I used, but it’s often possible to substitute other techniques, so a project using a hand appliqué method could use a machine method instead. Quilting can also be by hand or machine to suit your preference. With practise you will find what you like.
Measurements are in Imperial inches with metric conversions in brackets – use one or the other as they are not interchangeable. The most accurate results will be obtained using inches.
Whether you want to make a small project for a friend or a larger one to display in your own home the main thing is to take your time and enjoy yourself. Appliqué is very forgiving and you will be amazed and pleased at what you can achieve. You don’t need to be too precise as to where the pieces are placed – that’s also the beauty of a folk-art look. Keep a healthy balance between perfection and slapdash, and above all enjoy what you create.
Fabric Selection
Choosing fabric is a vital, and exciting, part of making a quilt. It is also a very personal thing so be guided by what pleases you. The following advice will help.
Fabric Pattern
Most of my projects are picture-based appliqué. For these types of designs it is important for your eye to be able to see the shapes of the pieces and the overall picture clearly. Using fabrics with a large printed pattern is distracting and camouflages the shapes, so these fabrics are difficult to use successfully. I like to use tone-on-tone fabrics, those with small patterns that do not contrast too much with the background. Plain fabrics show the shapes very clearly and can be very dramatic, but they show every slightest mistake too. If I do use solids I usually add machine or hand embroidery.
For appliqué choose fabrics with small patterns that don’t have too many colours in them. Tone-on-tone fabrics are wonderful for this. The odd fabric can have a larger pattern that can be fussy cut into a flower or circle.
Fabric Colour
Colour is probably the most important aspect of fabric and thread choice. Try to think of the fabrics and threads you choose as making up a paint box of colours. I tend to use a fairly small range of colours on a project, or more particularly
