Sharon Keightley Quilts - Quilty Ramblings

Applique ideas and techniques E-book

October 14, 2016

After spending many hours playing with different applique techniques and designing mostly applique quilts, it's time I put my methods in a series of E-books.

Over my quilting lifetime I have tried many ways to applique ! From all this trial and error I have taken the parts of each technique that I like and formed the method that suits my style. I don't have a problem with using starch or glue to turn edges for turned edge applique, but I found if I don't need to use it all the better. Especially if you are doing large borders where it is difficult to wash them before sewing them to the outside of the quilt center. So this is the Applique method for the first E-book in the series.

Last month I placed several process pictures on social media, as I made progress on my latest pattern 'Treasures from the scrap bin'. Many comments were asked as to how I make the applique leaves and flowers, which lead me to writing tutorials on my methods. Well.........I found that while writing the tutorial's they have grown into an E-book ! There is so much information I want to include that when I looked at the amount of pages and detailed photo's for each step that this 'tutorial' was more than just a 'tutorial' it was becoming a book. I decided to add a cute little pattern 'Whimsy Flowers'. A good place to practice the applique method and make a cute mini quilt at the same time. Fun! Fun! Fun!

The applique method can be sewn by hand or invisibly by machine with the look of hand sewn applique. Yay!

I personally love the invisible machine applique for many reasons, which I explain in detail in the E-book.

You can find my Applique! E-book here

Happy Stitching

Sharon

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Also in Sharon Keightley Quilts - Quilty Ramblings

Zig-Zag borders

November 14, 2018 5 Comments

It's been such a long time since I posted, I am going to start today off with a post about the Zig-Zag border I am making for my Roses quilt.

There are many ways to make a Zig-Zag border, I have chosen to use half square triangles.

Here's how it works.

I cut 2 1/2 inch strips from a dark print and a light print then matched the light and dark print fabrics with right sides facing. I used a half square triangle ruler to cut out the pieces. Taking them to the sewing machine and sewing them together with a 1/4 inch seam. I like this method, it's fast and requires very little trimming.

Working on the Roses Quilt again!

August 31, 2018

The Roses quilt is coming along nicely, I have been squeezing in time over the weekend to stitch the applique Roses onto the third border and I can see the quilt starting to take shape. Today I hope to have the third border stitched in place and start prepping the fourth border of Roses. This will complete the center of the quilt. From there I have a vague idea of what will come next, I am hoping it will come clearer to me as I progress.

Creating interesting backgrounds for applique

August 07, 2018 1 Comment

This morning I am sewing the border fabrics together for the top and bottom borders of the Roses quilt. I have selected and range of tone on tone prints some light and some with a little bit of colour to give a bit of interest. I love to mix up the fabrics, using a large selection. Something I find helpful when piecing the strips is to pin at least the end of the seam so the fabrics don't shift while you are sewing and end up with one end longer than the other.