The Applique Society's First Meeting

The first meeting for the newly formed Central Victorian Chapter of The Applique Society was held last Sunday in Castlemaine and was a roaring success with a huge turn out of 41 ladies. Megan Carroll has form this chapter and you can view her blog http://www.appliquesocietyaustralia.blogspot.com/ for more information. Well done Megan.

We all thoroughly enjoyed Di Ford and her sewing groups wonderful quilts and had a lovely day sitting and sewing.

Can't wait till the next one.

Made a Skirt!

I love skirts and find it so hard to find good skirts in the shops. I thought this fabric would make a nice skirt so I laid down my A-line skirt and cut away! Although after I was finished I did notice that my original skirt was cut on the bias!! It had a lovely drape!! Oh well not bad for a first attempt. Maybe I should invest in a pattern!

Hera Marker

This is the Clover Hera Marker. It is a fabulous tool for marking out your quilt designs.

Just run it along your ruler like a pencil with firm pressure or use a quilting template.

And it gives you a lovely crisp crease to quilt over. It stays on for ages and works on all coloured fabric. Although it also will stay on if you don't want it to so like a pencil be careful that you want it where you put it.
Fantastic for cross hatching or feather templates. No more messy grey lead.

Hand Quilting Tutorial

To help the school mums quilt the quilt I have put together a little quilting tutorial.

Our quilt is already Batted but if yours isn't I batt my quilts and use safety pins every 6" or 7" to hold together. Smooth out the 3 layers and adjust the safety pins. I do this 3 times. Smoothing the top removing and putting back the pins to take out the wrinkles, turn over and repeat, then turn over and repeat on the top again. The last time shouldn't need much adjustment.

TOOLS
Hand quilting needles
Hand quilting cotton
Small scissors
Thimble (s) I use 2, metal on finger and leather on thumb
Hoop


Always start in the middle of the quilt and work outwards.
Use a quilting hoop.

To mark a line on the quilt, use the “HERA” marker, white plastic curved tool. (I forgot to take a photo of it and now my friend has it so I will take a picture and post it in the next few days). Place a CLEAN ruler on the quilt and use the hera marker to draw a “line”. This will leave a slight crease on quilt top. But no dark mark. Pencil can be used but I have found the Hera marker fantastic. I even use it with plastic quilting templates.

Tie a large knot in the quilting thread.

Place hoop on making sure the underneath is smooth.

Insert the needle into the center of the layers (not going through to the backing) 2” or so from where you will start and from the direction you will quilt. Pull the knot through into the center, this might need an extra tug, and start even running stitches back over the knot. Trim off any tail.

Quilt back over the tail inside the quilt.

Taking small running stitches collect as many stitches on the needle and push through using your thimble on your middle finger.

When forming stitches the needle should be vertical into the quilt so the stitches on top are the same as underneath. Sliding the needle in on an angle will make stitches on the top larger than the underneath.

Using your left hand underneath to feel the length of stitches you are taking. The pad of my finger feels the needle come through and my nail pushes it back up.

Continue along and if you need to move to a different area “travel” through the quilt layers and come up where you are needed. You don’t have to finish off the thread to go to a different close section.

To finish once the thread has run out, stop one stitch before and make a large knot into the thread 2” from the quilt, make the last stitch but don’t go through to the backing stay inside the layers, point the needle back in the direction you were quilting and come up to the top 2 / 3” out. Tie another large knot and repeat again traveling back the way you were quilting. Snip off the tail.

Sorry that one is a bit blurry!

Second knot.

Trim off tail.

Start again from the opposite direction going back over the tail to continue on.

Hope that was helpful!

Happy quilting!!