Where Do You Get Your Design Inspiration? Appliqué Inspiration From Interior Design Fabrics

I'm still plugging away at my Spirit Song quilt top, albeit intermittently.  So far I have four of the twelve 16" blocks completely assembled:

Four 16 Inch Blocks Assembled, Eight More to Go

It's tedious piecing at this point because I'm matching up triangles with seams that don't nest.  Lots of unpicking and finessing to get those triangle points to match up to my satisfaction!  But meanwhile, my mind is on other projects, inspired by everything I see around me.  If you're one of those sensible people who has made a resolution not to start any new projects or buy any new fabrics in 2020, you should probably stop reading this RIGHT NOW.  You have been warned...

So this gorgeous photo landed in my email in-box the other day in a newsletter from the interior design fabric supplier F. Schumacher: 

Linen Print Roca Redonda in Carbon and Multi from F. Schumacher, Retail $248/yd

I love how fresh and current this 18th century French botanical pattern looks in this colorway, updated with shades of coral, emerald and turquoise against that carbon gray background.  Wouldn't this be a fun color palette for an historic or traditional appliqué quilt pattern?  I especially love that dusky background color.

Moda's Ombre Confetti in Soft Black, available on Etsy here (affiliate link)

Moda's Ombre Confetti in Soft Black, available from an Etsy seller here, would give me a similar effect as a background fabric.  The black and gold metallic dots are clustered most densely near the selvages of the fabric and are much more sparse in the lighter parts of the fabric, so I'd likely use the middle areas of the fabric for my appliqué backgrounds and then use the areas along the selvages for borders or in pieced blocks.  

If you're not a fan of the metallic dots and you want to stay truer to the background in the inspiration print, you could try Sketch in Charcoal from Timeless Treasures, available on Etsy here:

Sketch in Charcoal from Timeless Treasures, available on Etsy here

Then, for the applique elements themselves, there are all sorts of delicious possibilities.  I could see this Jade Green Batik Blender from Timeless Treasures for some of the leaves:

Jade Green Batik Blender from Timeless Treasures, available on Etsy here

Kaffe Fassett Collectives prints from Free Spirit Fabrics would also work well for the appliqué elements.  

Philip Jeffries for Kaffe Fassett Collectives Bundle, available on Etsy here

I love fussy-cutting for applique from the oversized prints from Kaffe Fassett.  An emerald and turquoise flower or feather can make for a striking appliquéd leaf.  So much fun!  Back to the inspiration fabric from F. Schumacher:

Appliqué Inspiration Fabric, Roca Redonda in Carbon and Multi from F. Schumacher

Although I like Kaffe Fassett Collectives for some of the green and turquoise elements, the other colors in this palette are a bit more subdued.  To recreate the corals, aquas, and ochre shades found in my inspiration fabric, I'd probably turn to prints from Anna Maria Horner's Conservatory collection for Free Spirit Fabrics:

Anna Maria Horner's Conservatory collection for Free Spirit, available on Etsy here

Of course, I wouldn't be using ALL prints for my appliqué   I'd want plenty of solids and tonal solids as well.  I feel like I'd need to mix in a handful of luscious shot cottons for this project:

Peppered Cottons from Pepper Cory, available on Etsy here

In the photo above of Pepper Cory's Peppered Cotton swatches, you can see that different color yarns are used for the warp and weft of shot cottons, which gives them their fabulous color-shifting properties.  They're much more interesting than plain solid fabrics, yet the colors aren't hyper-bright to the point of distraction.  The effect is subtle, especially in an appliqué composition where the shot cottons are combined with batiks, prints, and true solids.

Last but certainly not least, I adore the tiny detailed elements of the F. Schumacher inspiration print fabric, many of which would be too small to execute as applique.  Those delicate vines, tiny leaves, and other details would be exquisite if they were embroidered using Sue Spargo's beautiful threads from Wonderfil:

Sue Spargo's Eleganza Threads from Wonderfil, available on Etsy here

And, while we're at it, some of those flower centers would probably benefit from a smattering of seed beads here and there, so long as our quilt isn't going to be used on a bed and frequently laundered.  My pick, to keep the palette true to my inspiration fabric while adding just a subtle bling, would be these size 11/0 Czech glass seed beads from Etsy seller lanabeads2:

11/0 Czech Glass Seed Beads in Taupe, available on Etsy here

Have I inspired you to start a new project yet?  Here are a few patterns that would be beautiful in this color palette: 

Love Entwined, Historic Reproduction by Esther Aliu, pattern available here

Like the F. Schumacher inspiration fabric, Esther Aliu's masterpiece historic reproduction pattern "Love Entwined" was based on an 18th century antique quilt, so I'd expect it would look amazing rendered in the updated Carbon & Multi colorway of the linen drapery fabric.

However, this color palette would also be delightful for one of Sarah Fiehke's whimsical applique patterns such as her 2017 Down the Rabbit Hole BOM, for which patterns and instructions are available here:

Down the Rabbit Hole by Sarah Fielke, pattern available here

Ooh, and imagine using this color palette for Karen Kay Buckley's Majestic Mosaic appliqué quilt, pattern available on Amazon here:

Majestic Mosaic by Karen Kay Buckley, pattern available here

One last peek at our inspiration photo:

There are a lot of books and workshops out there on color theory, but you really can't go wrong if you choose your color palette based on a mix of colors that speaks to you immediately as soon as you see it.  Interior design photos, fine art paintings, travel photos -- all are terrific sources for selecting colors for your next quilt.  

Where do YOU find your best design inspiration?  Let me know in the comments.

Meanwhile, there are a bazillion coral-colored Birds in the Air blocks waiting for me to sew them together for my Spirit Song quilt...

Still In Progress, my Spirit Song Dress Code Quilt

Happy weekend and happy stitching, everyone!  I'm linking up today's post with:

·       Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts  

·       Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       Moving it Forward at Em's Scrap Bag

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

Machine Applique Sample Finished + Another Grandma's Quilt to Rescue

You guys -- I finished my machine appliqué project from Karen Kay Buckley's workshop last month!  Well, I finished the top, anyway.  I plan to add borders and then I need to quilt it, but still.  All the appliqué is stitched down and the stabilizer is all ripped off the back, so I'm feeling like I've accomplished something!

I Call it "Underwater Sunrise Garden With Alien Bubbles."  12 x 18

This is a project that I started in a 6-hour workshop hosted by the Charlotte Quilter's Guild.  Here's what Karen's class sample looks like:

"Circles Squared" by Karen Kay Buckley, 14 x 20

So, as you can see, I monkeyed around with it a bit to try to make it my own.  First I chose the ombre fabric for the background, then I spent ridiculous amounts of time digging through my scrap bins to select different fabrics for leaves, flowers, and whatever those bazillion 3/4" circles are supposed to be.  Beads?  Marbles?  Dormant alien seed pods drifting down from the Mother Ship, about to hatch and annihilate the Earth?  Karen is an amazing teacher and I learned a lot from the workshop, but I don't like making the exact same project as all of the other students in the class.  I brought this downstairs to the kitchen on Monday so I could work on it with my quilting bee, and then I couldn't STOP working on it after my quilter friends left, so this is what my kitchen island looked like all week:

Ain't No One Cookin' NUTHIN' 'Til This Project is DONE!

My husband didn't complain once -- no snide comments about "why is all this stuff down here when I built you a giant studio upstairs," either!  It was nice to be prepping and glue basting the appliqué while he was watching TV a few feet away from me to keep me company.

Applique Picking and Prepping In Progress

So I experimented with fussy cutting and layering, and learning about how different a fabric looks when I cut a TINY piece for appliqué ..  This is primarily a learning exercise for me.  I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this thing once it's finished.  However, I did want to finish it for the following reasons:

1. To practice invisible machine appliqué -- a technique that I hope will enable me to make MORE appliqué quilts than I could ever finish by hand.
2. To decide how I like the stabilizer Karen had us using.  I wanted to see whether this iron-on stuff would stay on well enough and long enough for me to finish all of the appliqué stitching, and I wanted to find out how easy it was to remove the stabilizer from the back of the work once stitching was complete (that part was NOT fun, folks!).
3. To find out whether or not the tracing paper marks on the background fabric wash out completely from the finished quilt.  I'm REALLY nervous about the dark lines against the lighter areas of my fabric in particular.  Evidently it was not necessary for me to be pressing so hard when I was tracing the pattern onto my fabric!  Some of my friends who were also in this class have tried and failed to remove those lines from their projects, but I don't know of anyone who has actually quilted it and washed it in the laundry to see if the lines come out.   Meanwhile, the longer the marks stay on my fabric, the better a test it is of whether I'd be able to get the marks out of a large quilt once I was finished quilting it.
4. This is going to be good longarm quilting practice for me, too.  I've got some other applique quilts in my pipeline that are important to me, but my longarming skills are not ready to tackle them yet.  So the final reason for finishing this piece is so I can use it to practice quilting around appliqué on the longarm machine.

Dark Placement Lines from Dressmaker's Transfer Paper

See what I mean?  But, worst case scenario, I'll just add some kind of embellishment around the alien marbles with heavy decorative thread at the tail end of the project if those lines don't come out, and then I'll know for next time.

Removing Stabilizer With Tweezers

Removing the stabilizer from the back was really annoying, by the way -- much worse than removing foundation paper piecing patterns, because the size 60 needle we used for the invisible machine applique makes much tinier holes than the size 90 needles I use for foundation paper piecing.  So the stabilizer isn't perforated quite as well as I'd expected, even though the stitches are super tiny and the needle holes are much closer together than they are for paper piecing.

Invisible Machine Applique Stitch, Tweaked Again

By the way, I tweaked that stitch again and made it even shorter when I was going around those 3/4" circles.  I just felt like I needed the swing "bite" parts of the stitch closer together to secure the circles properly.  Honestly, once the circles are prepped and glue basted, they would have been so much easier to stitch by hand than constantly pivoting around that tight curve on the machine.  However, larger shapes with straight lines and gentle curves are much faster to stitch by machine.  I was glad that Karen mentioned in class that she sometimes combines hand stitched and machine stitched appliqué in the same project; that makes perfect sense.

Hey, Have any of you made a Double Wedding Ring quilt before?  Any advice, suggestions, or tutorial links to share?  

Let me know in the comments!   Because there's one more thing I want to show you guys.  A woman recently contacted our quilt guild after discovering a WIP/UFO (Work In Progress/UnFinished Object) in her late grandmother's attic.  She is looking for someone to finish it for her, and it's a bed size Double Wedding Ring.  Of course no one raised their hand, because most people know enough to keep their hands down and their mouths shut to stay out of trouble.  But I was curious and couldn't resist at least taking a look at it.

I Do Know Better, But Still...

I made no promises and told the woman I'd need to see the project in person to make recommendations and give her a quote, but she sent me this photo in the meantime.  The resolution isn't good enough to blow it up any larger, but it looks well-pieced and pretty flat, don't you think?  Pretty, cheerful colors, too, and that makes a HUGE difference because I hate working on projects that don't appeal to my personal aesthetics.  When I see it in person, I'll discuss options with the granddaughter.  She did tell me that everything is all cut out already and she thinks her grandma finished piecing all of the rainbow arcs.  If the cutting and piecing are accurate and the completed portions are laying nice and flat as they should, this should be doable, right?  I can give her some options, too -- even if grandma intended to make a bed quilt, we could just add enough to what she's done to get it to a throw or wall hanging size, or even make a couple of pillows from the already pieced section.  I do seem to have a soft place in my heart for rescuing grandma quilts, especially the ones that have the most potential to become a can of worms...

Anyway, you'll have to wait until the end of the month to find out whether that quilt is coming home to my vintage quilt hospital studio, because next week is Anders' 16th birthday on Tuesday and then we are moving Lars into his freshman dorm at Appalachian State University on Friday.  YIKES!!  

Have a wonderful week, everyone!  I'll be linking up with:

SUNDAY

·      Slow Sunday Stitching at http://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/  

·      Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com

MONDAY

·      Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com 

·      Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts http://www.cookingupquilts.com/

·      Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

·      Moving it Forward at Em’s Scrap Bag: http://emsscrapbag.blogspot.com.au/

·      BOMs Away at Katie Mae Quilts: https://www.katiemaequilts.com/blog/ 

TUESDAY

·      Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at http://www.cleverchameleon.com.au

WEDNESDAY

·      Midweek Makers at www.quiltfabrication.com/

·      WOW WIP on Wednesday at www.estheraliu.blogspot.com

THURSDAY

·      Needle and Thread Thursday at http://www.myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.com/  

FRIDAY

·      Whoop Whoop Fridays at www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com
     Beauty Pageant at www.frombolttobeauty.blogspot.com

·      Finished Or Not Friday at http://busyhandsquilts.blogspot.com/

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·      TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: http://tgiffriday.blogspot.ca/p/hosting-tgiff.html  

Machine Applique Progress and Continued Long Arm Tweaking

Testing, tinkering and troubleshooting makes for boring blog posts, which is why I haven't posted in awhile.  Last night I took a break from all of that and spent some time playing with the machine appliqué project from Karen Kay Buckley's workshop.

Leaf By Leaf, KKB Workshop Project Coming Together

I'm enjoying the prepared edge, invisible machine stitched technique and the prep time really is minimal compared to other methods I've tried.  The reason this project isn't finished yet is that I've been having so much fun (and wasting so much TIME!) digging through scrap bins to find the perfect fabric for each little leaf.  But then, once I've preturned the edges of each piece and glue-basted it in place on my background fabric, the actual stitching part is a breeze.  Since I brought my Bernina 475QE Goldilocks machine to the workshop, I've been continuing with that machine now that I'm working on this at home.

Bernina 475QE Settings for Invisible Machine Applique

I have YLI Wonder invisible monofilament thread in the needle as well as in the bobbin, and I'm using a size 60 Microtex needle.  I am using a modified version of the Invisible Machine Appliqué stitch found in my machine's Quilting menu, with the stitch width reduced to 0.7 and the stitch length reduced to 0.55.  With monofilament thread in the top AND bobbin, no tension adjustments were necessary.  Once I got the length and width dialed in, I saved the altered stitch in my Personal Programs folder so I can get to it quickly whenever I'm doing this technique.  For this project, since my background fabric is very dark in some places and very light in others, I'm alternating between the Clear and Smoke monofilament depending on the background fabric in the area where I'm sewing down each shape.  I'm using Open Embroidery Foot #20 to give me a really clear view of where every stitch is landing, and of course, since this is a sideways motion stitch, I've got the regular 5.5 mm stitch plate on my machine rather than the straight stitch needle plate that I like to use for piecing.

Open Embroidery Foot #20 for Great Visibility

Meanwhile, on the other side of the studio...

The fine-tuning and tweaking of my APQS Millennium longarm quilting machine continues.  My husband Bernie gave her a thorough maintenance and cleaning as per APQS Tech Support instructions and she's moving more smoothly along the rails.  Upper tension adjustments are working much better since he disassembled and rebuilt the tension assembly.  And the erratic motor speed issue has improved since he replaced a cable, but I'm not sure it's completely resolved.  He replaced my L "Smart Hook" assembly with the larger M Hook assembly and retimed the machine, and I'm still deciding how I feel about that.  I feel like there's more noise under there now, like rattling operation, but when I take out the bobbin case and check for any play in the hook collar area everything is tight and rock-solid, just as it should be, and the timing is perfect.  So now I'm wondering whether a brand new hook needs more oil right out of the gate and that's why it seems loud or whether I'm paranoid and imagining things now??  I'm hoping to get a charity cuddle top on the frame this afternoon so I can see how the machine does quilting an actual project rather than a sample sandwich of muslin.

Another thing I'm still on the fence about is the Texas Hold 'Em Bracket I got so I could remove the quilt top roller from my frame.  Here's what Millie looked like before, with the top roller in place:

My APQS Millennium with Quilt Top Roller in Place

The quilt top roller is the one with blue painter's tape on it.  I've experimented with pinning my quilt tops to that roller versus doing a full float method where nothing gets attached to that roller at all, and I've found that the full float method is working better for me.  Since I'm not using that roller at all, it's kind of in my way when I'm quilting, and the Texas Hold 'Em bracket was designed to preserve the functionality of the hand brake with that top roller removed:

APQS Texas Hod 'Em Bracket, Place Holder for the Quilt Top Roller

What's going to take some getting used to is relearning how far I can keep quilting before the throat of my machine hits the pickup roller.  Just because the top roller is gone doesn't mean my machine can reach farther forward than it did before:

This Is the Closest the Machine Reaches Before the Pickup Roller Hits the Machine Throat

See what I mean?  It's not that I actually have less workspace, it's just that I was using the quilt top roller as a visual reference before and, now that it's gone, it LOOKS like I should be able to quilt another 6" closer to my tummy.  So that will take getting used to!  The quilt top roller was really annoying me on the Mission Impossible quilt, when I was quilting all those horizontal lines with rulers and I had to reach my hand over the quilt top roller and hold my wrist in weird positions to use the rulers.  I'm also thinking that it might be easier to work with wool batting and double battings without that bar there, since I'll be able to lift the quilt top out of my way and visually check that the batting is smooth and even each time I advance the quilt.  But it's easy enough to put that quilt top bar back on the frame if I ever decide I want to use it again.

So anyway, I have two possible outreach cuddle quilt tops that I could load today, one that is just giant checkerboard squares in Christmas prints and the other is the purple novelty fabric I Spy  top that my mom pieced a few months ago.  A friend from my quilting bee loaned me a set of Groovy Boards to try and I was thinking of using those on one or both of these tops, but with so many new variables at play I'm not sure I'm in the right mindset to learn how to use the new tools, if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, we're moving my oldest son into his college dorm for the first time in less than TWO WEEKS!!  I'm not going to really believe that until we're driving away from the college, leaving him behind.  Weird, weird, weird!!  And then we have a family wedding the following weekend, and then school starts up again for my youngest son, the rising high school Junior.  Summer goes faster every year, doesn't it?

I'm linking up with:

SUNDAY

·      Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework http://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com

MONDAY

·      Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts http://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com 

·      Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts http://www.cookingupquilts.com/

·      Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/

·      Moving it Forward at Em’s Scrap Bag: http://emsscrapbag.blogspot.com.au/

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·      BOMs Away at Katie Mae Quilts: https://www.katiemaequilts.com/blog/