Monday, December 24, 2012



Hopefully this won't take up too much space on the board.  The top design appeared in Canadian Living magazine in 1984, copyright to me, and the magazine sold over 100,000 paper pattern designs of the Canadian Provincial Flower quilt.  The second layout, same design, is by F. Babbington & a co-quilter and won a ribbon at the Stratford Breast Cancer quilt exhibit years ago.  The last design layout is by my friend, Beckie Shaw, from our area here, who won a second place ribbon with her quilt at the CQA conference last year.  The top quilt was made by Dufferin Piecemakers Guild as a fundraiser.  Believe it or not, I've never made this quilt though designed it.  The prototype was made by one of my quilting students who did such an excellent job on it (Arlene Rose was her name) that I never had the nerve to try it myself.
RoseyP in southern Ont., Canada

posted by RoseyP @ 7:56 AM

7 Comments:

At December 24, 2012 at 10:41 AM , Blogger Phyllis in Minnesota said...

Beautiful design Rosey. Makes me wish I would have spent more time practicing applique because I would never be able to do your designs justice.
Merry Christmas and a Quilted New Year.

 
At December 24, 2012 at 2:41 PM , Blogger RoseyP said...

Phyllis, quilters keep saying this to me and quite frankly, I'm self-taught of the old school, started quilting in my early twenties in the early nineteen-sixties. I taught and designed quilts during the 70's but then in 1983, I entered art college and that was when all these new fangled types of applique and pieced work came in. I'm not a technical person, so the newer methods, such as paper backing applique drove me batty. I was always digging paper out from under the units of applique. So, while my work is good, it's not perfect, the way that type of applique can be. Applique work is quiet work, to me. It makes me sit still which is something that I find useful from time to time...(smiling here...)...sitting isn't something I do easily. Just to let you know that Canadian Living magazine showed a picture of a man who had made that quilt and he'd never quilted a day in his life before that...maybe he taught himself how to applique, too...the magazine published the quilt a year or two after the pattern appeared.
Rosey

 
At December 24, 2012 at 4:52 PM , Blogger Kathi in Idaho said...

I did one of Rosey's designs and found that the actual applique pieces were quite easy to work with. The challenging part was picking fabrics, which is also the most fun part of a quilt IMHO. An applique quilt definitely is NOT something you want to have ready in a hurry, though.

I like having the handwork to do during the wintertime. Pieced quilts are usually done during the other three seasons, at least for me.
Kathi

 
At December 24, 2012 at 11:01 PM , Blogger Phyllis in Minnesota said...

Thanks for the encouragement Kathi and Rosey. As with everything - practice makes perfect but when my curves and corners have big lumps and those inside corners drive me crazy, I put it aside instead of practicing. I am a very patient person but applique seems to change my attitude.....but think I'll give it another try.
Enjoy life, Phyllis

 
At December 25, 2012 at 7:00 AM , Blogger RoseyP said...

Phyllis, the thing to watch with applique, aside from pointy curves, which I get too and I use my needle to smooth them out as I sew (and I don't press my patches or units, I just turn them under ready for appliquing), is to make sure that you choose patterns with fairly decent sized unit patches. The Persian Sampler was designed at the request of a church group in Toronto, whom I had taught two courses of quilting to and who wanted to raise money for the church through making a quilt. When they saw the design, they said it was too hard for them. In fact, it wasn't. They didn't make it up but one of my students, who later moved to Texas, made it up, sent me a photo (I'd never made it up either, just drawn the paper pattern) and when I saw her quilt, I immediately made one for myself. It is a very easy quilt for someone not too skilled in applique, yet. Look for easy patterns. The Provincial Flowers design is much harder to make because of smaller unit pieces.
In my experience teaching quilting, I've found there to be two main types of quilters, pieced or applique, with a third of the lucky ones who like both pieced work and applique. Most times quilters prefer one over the other. For me, applique has allowed greater scope for pictorial work, which seems to interest me more.
I hope you'll give it a try with a very easy applique pattern, Phyllis. Sitting is relaxing; handwork is relaxing. But maybe I'm talking to the converted already.
Rosey

 
At December 25, 2012 at 8:39 PM , Blogger Phyllis in Minnesota said...

Rosey - thanks for the tips. Is it better to use a long needle when doing applique vs. a regular size?
I do love any kind of handwork whether it's embroidery, hand quilting or hand sewing on a binding.
Phyllis

 
At December 25, 2012 at 9:18 PM , Blogger Kathi in Idaho said...

I like a long straw needle, size 11, (also called a milliners needle) for needle turn. They tend to bend a bit easier than some, but I like the way they work the fabric. The straw needles get longer with the higher number as opposed to the handquilting needles that are smaller when the number is higher. I also use silk thread, as it buries itself into the fabric way better than cotton does.

There is a good book called Applique, Applique, Applique that goes into a lot of different techniques. Maybe your library would have it.

Kathi

 

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