At last month’s meeting of Waterloo Quilters we had a workshop on using children’s colouring books as a source of patterns for appliqued blocks. The member running the session had done all the preparation work for us – tracing the patterns on to bond-a-web, choosing the fabrics, ironing the pattern pieces on to the fabrics and cutting out the individual pieces. It made for a very relaxing session as all we had to do was iron the pieces on to the backing and stitch around them.
I take a basic machine to the meetings and used one of the buttonhole stitches as a satin stitch to stitch around the pieces. Although it is a basic machine, it does have the ability to do free motion sewing and so I was able to add facial features. However, I seem to have given the elephant a more mischievous expression than on the original illustration.
Many of those with machines with a greater range of stitches chose to use a blanket stitch and enough blocks were completed during the meeting for a Project Linus quilt.
I think fabric choice is the key to this technique and it is clear that the member running this session had a very good eye for patterns and colours.
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