Saturday, February 13, 2010

Hearts Wallhanging Done

Hearts  19"x29"

Tonight I finished Hearts, a wallhanging I started about a year ago for Valentine's Day.  The heart shapes are all a little different from each other.  I drew lots of hearts on paper, then chose my favorites.  I traced the shapes onto the dark red fabric, which I had previously backed with fusible web.  Once the hearts were arranged I ironed them into place.  That's as far as I got last year.

Since Valentine's Day is tomorrow, I decided I'd go ahead and finish it.  After viewing several tutorials on the Internet about machine applique, I chose a tight zigzag.  For stabilizer I used plain binder paper on the back, sewing through the heart, background and binder paper.  After the applique was done most of the paper came off, but a little remains in the zigzag stitches on the back, which doesn't really bother me.  The paper will never be seen.

Close-up

With the applique done, I made the quilt sandwich with scrap batting and the same green fabric for backing. I machine quilted in a loop-de-loop pattern. Here's a tip I got from Ami Simms' website:  Before attaching binding, I took 4" squares and folded them on the diagonal, forming triangles. I placed a triangle in each corner of the back of the quilt, raw edges to the sides of the quilt. The corners will hold strips of wood for hanging. I attached the binding, and voila!  Another WIP was done.

Close-up showing one of four triangles that will hold strips of wood for hanging

2 comments:

  1. These are called Fast Finish Triangles and they were "invented" by Terry Chilko one of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative supporters. The AAQI has a tutorial on how to do this: http://www.alzquilts.org/paqdisplay.html

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.