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New Quilt Project - Bird by Bird

I found a great book called Applique Mastery by Philippa Naylor. In it, she throughly goes over her techniques for applique and her pattern for her quilt called Bird by Bird.


I admit, I don't usually follow a pattern exactly unless its making a tote or bag or something and I kinda have to for it to turn out. I simply mean that where a pattern says use X color or X shape, I probably won't. I'll change little things making them more mine so by the time I'm done, I doubt my quilt will look exactly like hers. And that's okay.

The quilt has a lot of applique pieces. Hence the title applique mastery. No I didn't count all the pieces but clearly there are a several hundred or more in this 74x74" quilt. If I would use a pair of scissors to cut all the interfacing pieces and fabric pieces and do it all by hand, I would be dead by the time it all got cut out let alone sewn down.

So, that's where my handy Cameo Silhouette comes in. I bought one to cut out paper decorations for my in-laws 50th Anniversary party last year but now I think I need it to help me cut out several hundred pieces of fabric and interfacing. I'll still have to do a lot of work on them and then sew them down but the Silhouette will cut faster and more accurately then I ever could and I might get this quilt done sometime this century.

The applique pieces are also machine sewn. You can sew them down by hand or whatever you want to do but I think I'll machine sew the pieces down and try to get the quilt done sometime in the next decade. Naylor also uses her sewing machine a lot for this quilt and I don't just mean to sew pieces down. There are a lot of embellishments from adding rick rack to decorative stitches around each and every piece with different kinds of thread.

So this quilt is going to be a huge challenge for me. One, I have to pick 10 different fabrics that will contrast and coordinate in a pleasing eye catching color scheme, work with several hundred applique pieces and interfacing, and add any embellishments (decorative thread stitches, rick rack, cording, etc.) that I want to try. And let's not forget, I always have 1 sewing element I do that I've never done before in my quilts (at least I try to). So since this is literally 1 piece of fabric and sewing bits onto it, I'm thinking I need to try a prairie points border, which I've never done before... ever.

Now to pick fabric.

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