It's about time I made an appearance here, my applique has been sadly neglected for a while and I have been missing it hugely. A little while ago I fell in love with the bright and cheery (not unlike Kaffe's) fabrics from the talented quilt artist Keiko Goke.
These fabrics make me smile whenever I look at them, so I have decided to match them up with Kim's gorgeous pattern
Flower Garden. The wall where I will hang this quilt when finished won't be large enough for the whole quilt, so I plan on making just five rows of the flower blocks (20 blocks in all) and no borders. To spice things up a bit and give the quilt a Keiko Goke feel (see some of her amazing quilts
here), my background blocks will be pieced using some of the whiter Keiko fabrics, a few other various fabrics thrown in, and of course, some of Kaffe's shot cottons....this is my first background block ready for its applique!
A lot of my Keiko Goke fabrics I have purchased from Liza at
Glorious Colour. Keiko lives in Sendai, Japan, the centre of the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year. Our dear Liza has made a very generous commitment to send ALL the profits she receives from Keiko's fabrics this year over to Keiko. I feel very happy that my purchases are going to help that devastated community in a small way. Thank you Lisa!
I haven't forgotten my Hearts & Flowers finished top, yet to be quilted...
nor my Roseville blocks...
But for now, I will be happy playing in the flower garden! Cathy (
Cabbage Quilts). xo
Thanks Sue
I'm going to be internet-less for about 8 to 10 days, so in the mean time, you might like to start cutting up the freezer paper templates and bag them in a zip lock bags?
A tip - when you are cutting up those freezer paper templates, say a bird - number the body as 1 and the tail 1-2 and the wing 1-3 and if you make a slash mark on the wing/body join and a double slash mark on the tail/body join BEFORE you cut the pieces, it will make it easier to position the parts together. By numbering the applique pieces as described, you'll be able to see which part belongs to what. I also don't cut the parts all the way till I get to iron them on the print fabrics - so, if taking that bird as an example, leave a little part of the body/tail and body/wing joins so they are just still attached. I hope you are getting what I'm trying to say? may be I'll do a sample and photograph it and do a post?
The other thing you need to decide is the applique background fabrics. These blocks are surrounded by pieced blocks. So, you may have to consider that it might be good to have a contrast between the applique background and the pieced block backgrounds. I wanted to use the shot cotton/ prints for the pieced blocks, so a print fabric like the "spots" might be good. You can use different colour fabrics for the applique background. Don't worry about things not co-ordinating together. This quilt has soo many things in it, that most fabrics will go together ( within the genre that is - might not go too well putting Kaffe's and '30s fabric).If you haven't tried those shot cottons, they are really lovely with the Kaffe collective prints.
So - till I get back up in the internet again soon?
Post your fabric choices or whatever else you'd like everyone to see."