Silk Needleturn Applique

As I have now reached the big milestone of making my final assessment piece - a silk quilt - I thought I would put certain aspects of it on here, particularly as some of you will have silk offcuts in pretty colours and may like to use them for applique.

My quilt design was approved some time ago but other demands have delayed me starting it until now.  Since the design was approved I have made some modifications to it, partly as a result of my tutor's suggestions and also because we have decorated a room in a lovely pale yellow and I want to put the finished quilt in there, so the original colour choices were not appropriate.

The idea is based on pots containing perfume in front of a tiled background and with Myrtle branches, leaves and flowers trailing across and in front.  It's a long story how this theme has come about but briefly it had to be based on earlier designs and drawings from the 'Line' module and mine was all about a cracked garden pot, which evolved through design work into pots and bottles that had an Eastern appearance and looked as though they may contain perfumes or spices.  The Myrtle plant come into it because Myrtle is a common ingredient in many perfumes.  The tiles were chosen as a background because the bottles and plant will be appliqued so I wanted a simple backdrop for this.

So far I have made the silk background in yellow and green and am now working on preparing the appliqued bottles.  The preparation for this is the subject for today.

The bottle shapes came from copying some of my own and the rest from a beautiful Kaffe Fassett book loaned to me by Pat (Cook).  He had a photo shoot in the V&A Museum and the bottles of exquisite colours and design were in many of the pictures of his work.

First I drew the shapes and then scanned them into the computer so that I could adjust the sizes as needed. Then I printed templates on to printer paper which was strong enough for me to draw around

In the photo are the items needed to create slightly padded appliques.  The initial sketch made larger, The sketch transferred on to Bondaweb, some wadding and some silk.

I printed the bottle shapes on to normal printer paper as I said but I also wanted one to use as a shape for quilting on the background so this one I backed with card and cut it out to make a firm template which could be used over and over again.  I plan to trace the bottle shape on to some of the square blocks as a basis for background quilting once I have decided on placement of the bottles themselves.


So how to create the silk appliques?  Well the method I have come up with is to bond wadding on to the back of the silk in the shape of the bottle and cut the silk out using a 1/4" seam allowance. 

First trace the shape on to Bondaweb in the usual way, iron this on to the wadding making sure that you use a cotton setting for several seconds so that the glue melts thoroughly (I discovered that a cooler iron or too short a time resulted in the glue pulling the wadding apart instead of separating easily from the paper.  If you try this method practice on some spare pieces first to get the iron settings correct).  Let the Bondaweb cool fully then cut out the shape and ease a pin between the wadding and the paper to start the release process.  Now press the piece of silk with a cool iron and using baking parchment iron the wadding shape to the wrong side of the silk.  Cut carefully around the shape leaving a 1/4" seam.


The next task is to turn the silk edges in and press around the wadding with a cool iron.  You will need to clip into the seam allowance on some curves but remember that silk frays easily so don't go in too close to where the fabric turns over the edge of the wadding.  Tack around the turned in edges ready to sew to the background.

The photos are on their side here and I should have turned them in Photoshop before inserting them as I can't turn them on the blog.  Sorry about that but wrong way up or not it tells the same story!


You may remember that when bonding shapes for applique we always make the point that they need to be reversed (if it matters).  I am pleased to tell you that with this method no reversal is necessary because the shape is reversed at the Bondaweb stage, then reversed again at the wadding stage so note in the image of the jug below that once the jug is appliqued to the background it will be the right way around.

 One other thing to mention today is about the background quilting.  I said that I had created a bottle template to be copied for that purpose.  But I also want to give the impression of perfume evaporating from the pretty bottles so I plan to quilt some curly wavy shapes arising from the top of the bottles and have practiced this on the sample below - something tells me this will need quite a lot of practice first!

 Finally, today, here is an image of a Myrtle plant and it has the most interesting flowers which I think may give me a few challenging moments as I try to work out how best to create them in fabric.

 I hope to continue this story soon with more on the chosen applique method - needle turn applique.