This is Jenny, still in pieces but arranged so you can see her basic pose. I’ve been testing appliqué methods and hopefully this will work. 
The plum-colored fabric is wrapped around a medium weight stabilizer and glued with a tacky glue that won't soak through the stabilizer. Some of the details are acrylic paint, others are embroidered with various threads. The plan is to add beads for the flower centers. The mane is a piece of black upholstery fabric that has been unraveled. The striped part of the tail is a roll of the same fabric as the ear insides. The underneath leg probably needs to be shaded a bit. I might add a swirl of leaves winding around with FMQ* if it seems possible to do without ruining it(!)*free motion quilting
Attaching her onto the background will be the tricky part, of course. Invisible stitches? Topstitching? Machine blanket stitch? The background isn’t made yet, so I don’t have to worry about that today.
7 comments:
Love her! Looking fabulous!!! Still toiling away over here on some mundane paying work. But thankful :~)
keep up the good work.
Loreen -- She is WONDERFUL!! Tell us more: is everything fused to the body? Your turned edges are perfectly done, and your creativity is fabulous -- I love to see your mind at play!
Diane
Have you considered attaching Jenny to the quilt after it is quilted with some blind stitching and maybe adding a little stuffing underneath? I did that with a dolphin shaped label before, and always thought I'd try it on another quilt by itself. I bring it up because the way you've turned the edges under onto a stabilizer, reminded me (sort of) what I did with this dolphin.
It looks great, even without any background! Love all the materials you used for details.
She's dancing! How cute. I love your Jenny. Have you thought of hand applique?
Thanks for the kind comments, y’all! This is the first time I’ve made a whimsical character in fabric since about 1981(!)
There is no fusible, just a little tacky glue on the reverse of the stabilizer. I use fusibles, but sometimes they aren’t as easy as glue. The eye, nose, and hooves are painted with acrylics.
I’m definitely considering hand blind stitching, might be the safest. A hand blanket stitch might work, too. I have a sample chunk of the plum with turned edges to try things with. One sample looked great with machine blanket stitch, but it didn't have the features such as the eye, etc. An excess of stitching might compete with those details too much.
She does look like she’s dancing, but will be holding things with each arm, eventually. I forgot to mention (in case it’s not obvious) that Jenny is a donkey.
She is fabulous! I love the colors and the mix of prints. Can't wait to see her in place.
I was in a nice local quilt shop (Fireside Quilts in Sanford, FL) and they had some appliqué samples out. One of them used small machine blanket stitching in a matching color, and it gave a nice subtle edge. That might work for Jenny’s plum parts, then I might do blind stitching on the black hooves and gold nose.
Post a Comment