Tuesday, January 15, 2013

A wooly finish

As the reality of my upcoming move begins to sink in I am looking around to finish up a few UFOs that are almost done. Here is a wool project that I started about a year ago to practice embellishing. The pattern is from the book "Pennies from Heaven" and is just a small wall hanging. I tried a few new things with this including some needle turn appliqué using silk taffeta. I was surprised how easy it was since I had heard horror stories of raveling and shredding. But I used no interfacing and just marked the front and needle turned the seam allowance just as I would cotton fabric. It adds a nice sheen and I will be doing this again. I have a lot of silk taffeta that I purchased in Thailand but also some that I pick up in drapery fabric stores. Those little free swatches are perfect for appliqué! I did some quilting around all the appliqué and am not sure how I like that. I rarely see quilting on small wool pieces but I wanted to give it a try. Looks ok but not as flat as I might like. Perhaps next time I need to add more quilting in the wool background but this one will stay as is. I also used a silk blend stripe fore the binding. The colors are perfect and it was surprisingly easy to work with. Overall a happy experiment.

11 comments:

  1. Absolutely beautiful! I love the background fabric as well and that striped binding is so cute!

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  2. Very pretty! And yes, that backgroud fabric complements it beautifully.

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  3. Your wallhanging is beautiful! Good job of trying out different fabrics.
    Beth in MN

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  4. Lovely! I've never done wool applique but always wanted to try. Did you do it by needle turn or is it raw edge?

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  5. I love it! Lovely colors and wool and cotton is so nice together...

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  6. It's gorgeous. My boss' mother always quilts around appliqué. Wool too ; )

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  7. Wool too?! Wow girl you can do it all! I have yet to try wool, I'm afraid I'll start hoarding a whole new set of fabrics. Good to know about the taffeta.
    Gorgeous!

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  8. It is beautiful! Love your border fabric.
    Never tried applique with taffeta.

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  9. I gasped when I saw this beautiful little quilt. It's absolute perfection!!

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  10. Love it! Gorgeous background fabric and the binding is perfect.

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