Hey everybody, it’s Rob from Man Sewing.
I’ve got a spoiler alert for today’s tutorials.
That’s right, I’ve got a two-part series on this cool quilted city scape that I did.
And I loved doing it.
But while we were filming it, we were filming it live.
Meaning I was creating the step by step process while the cameras were rolling.
And doing so I recommended we use a thick fusible fleece as the backing for the buildings
so we can put them as applique.
That will make more sense once you watch the tutorial.
But what I’m really recommending, so before you get started, don’t do what I did.
Do now what I’m saying.
Use the finer, the paper thin fusible interfacing, a light weight.
So you can still use it to fuse down the back side of the applique.
It will turn the edges under nice but it won’t be so thick.
I ran into a couple of places where there was three buildings on top of each other,
and it made it real difficult to get under the presser foot of my beast here for the
free motion quilting.
So it just made it a little bit harder to move the way I wanted to and you’re going
to see those stitches in some of the photographs.
Nonetheless, I’ve always got your back here at Man Sewing and so even when I’m creating
something on the fly, I’m going to let you know if there’s a better approach.
So use the fusible interfacing, not the fusible fleece.
I’m going to sit back while you enjoy these tutorials here at Man Sewing.
Hey welcome back to Man Sewing.
It’s Rob and I really want to rock through this second half of my Variegated Cloth City
Scape.
If you’re just now tuning in, you’re going to want to watch the first part so you can
know why we’re here at the second part.
But just a quick recap, I used the Awesome Essentials by Carol Bryer Fowler.
They’re these variegated fabrics that are for Benertex.
So there’s only three fabrics that are used in my quilt.
There’s the white-yellow that you see here in the windows.
There was the gray for the buildings.
And then the blue right there was a nice piece you can see that was used for the background.
Now what we’re going to do today is we’re going to go ahead, and as these buildings
have already been done, I’m, what I’m calling facing the buildings, or I’m going
to go ahead and make these buildings a finished edge so that I can still individually move
them around and make them for my applique.
All you’re going to really need for this step is basically some fusible fleece.
Now the fusible fleece is a little thick like a batting.
Not as thick as a batting though.
And then on this side here, let me open it up so you can really see.
On this side, it has a rough texture and that’s the actual glue.
And for what I want, in the long run, this glue is going to end up on the back of the
buildings so that I can iron them in place before I take them under the quilting machine.
So I’m considering my glue side, the right side on this project, ok?
I’m going to need a purple thing to poke the corners out, rotary cutter and ruler.
And that’s all we have to do.
So you ready to get started?
I certainly am.
Alright?
Our first step, we’re going to do is we’re going to take our buildings that are in the
raw stage or the rough stage and we’re going to give them one last ironing or pressing.
And I’m just trying to do this to get everything nice and smooth and I’m also evaluating
and looking at the edges of the building, making sure they visually look square because
I’m going to use those as my cutting and my stitch line.
The building itself becomes your pattern.
I’m going to open this right back up.
And make this, reminder, this is right sides or the rough, glue side there.
And then I’m going to simply lay my building down.
And then I’m going to use my rotary cutter and ruler to get a nice straight cut on the
side of the wall as I trim in, I’m using the bottom of all this, looking at all my
square.
I’m going to run this right through there.
Move that out of the way.
Now I’ve got a nice true line here.
Slice all the way through so I can get this out of our way.
And then the last cut will be that side of the building’s angle for the roof.
There we go.
That’s easy.
Once we have this stitched, we do not want to take an iron to it again at all.
We don’t want to start setting that glue until we’re ready to applique it onto our
background surface.
So from this point on, if you need to press anything, you’re just going to do it with
your thumb.
We’re not going to apply anymore heat.
I’m double checking to make sure I did cut it correctly.
So I have my right sides together.
And I’m just going to come on over to my sewing machine and we’re going to treat
this kind of like a pillow case but I’m not starting on the bottom corners on the
inside.
I’m going to start right at the bottom corners on the outside and sew around three sides
of the building.
Quarter inch seam allowance.
Drop your needle
to pivot.
Another pivot.
And the final corner.
Now remember, you cut your fuse to the exact size of your building.
So if you’re starting to get areas where the fuse was going to show up, you want to
make sure you pull everything nice and taut.
You want to make sure it’s crisp on that line because that’s your stabilization and
your pattern line all at once there.
Ok just like that.
Now from this point on, I’m going to literally just turn this right sides back out, gently
pushing most of the fiber out of the corner there.
Grab your purple thing, use that squared-out end.
I like to look at what I’m doing from the top side.
And I’m just going to do the corner.
The area where the roof line meets the side of the building and then the side of the building’s
corner as well.
Now look at how awesome that looks.
It’s all finished.
It’s going to actually give us a little bit of loft, so when I do my machine quilting
through here, I’m going to be able to add some more character or texture to my building
as well.
But that’s it.
That’s all we have to do to basically get these ready for the next step.
Now some of your buildings are going to have a real odd shape to them, right?
Let’s just get this a little bit better out of the way.
Let’s talk about how I handled the bottom of this one.
I’ve made it long.
It’s going to fit in.
I’ve already got this one kind of in its own location.
But I’ve still only stitched around, up across the top and down, even though this
is another one of those straight lines, it’s going to be hidden behind one of the other
buildings so I’m not concerned about stitching that down.
And if I had stitched it, I wouldn’t be able to turn this thing back right sides out.
Ok, so let’s get this thing ready to go.
Now the next step is I’ll start finishing the design back here.
Let you see that.
So last night, I shared a picture of the layout with a friend of mine, and she lives in New
York, and said I did a pretty good job, not too bad for a beach bum, huh?
I tell you what, I don’t spend much time in the city so I was assuming I got it right.
But she said, pretty, pretty sharp.
Ok, so that one’s done also.
And you know what, I already know where this one’s going to go so I’m just going to
drop this in over at the wall here.
And it’s going to go somewhere about in this location.
So I’m going to slide that in.
And I’m just going to gently pin it for now, ok?
Then I add this building and this building is going to end up somewhere over in here,
if I remember correctly.
There, not too bad, huh?
And then this building’s going to fill in this space.
So now let me take a moment and I’m going to bring this down and over a little bit.
What I’m looking at here, is I don’t want any of the buildings to completely line up
with each other.
What am I trying to say?
See this line right here?
See how the black goes all the way through?
It makes it look like it’s the same building.
You want to create a little bit of overlap or texture that way so that you can tell that
this building is a building that is behind and in the next block over behind that building.
So I’m going to start by setting the base right along here.
After this gets quilted, I’ll bind it to finish that raw edge that’s down there.
So the next building is going to come in here.
And then what I also learned in looking at this is that, see if I’m saying this correctly.
The building in front sits on top of the building that runs behind it and that gives a little
bit more dimension.
So we’re just going to pin that in there.
I think we’re getting pretty close.
I want to stick this one in here so I can get out of your way.
There.
I didn’t pin the top corner because now I want to bring this building down a little
bit.
Like that.
And again, those lines are not lining up now, so that it doesn’t look like it’s the
same building.
And I can get a pin in here for us.
Now a pin down here.
And now I can fine fit this last building in here.
And it’s going to go underneath that wall and over that one.
About like yay, if I remember correctly.
A little further.
Let’s start here.
Pin.
I’m going to catch this, but I’m going to now move this one.
And then I’m all done.
So I take a step back.
Maybe I take one of those viewfinders or the reducing glasses so I can really see it from
a distance.
But that is it, ladies and gentlemen.
That’s all we need to do for our city scape, right?
As a reminder, once I get this flat on the table, on my ironing surface, I’m going
to very carefully iron, making sure that none of the facing, that black fusible interfacing,
none of that is showing forward.
I’m going to try to do my best to pinch it behind it.
If a little bit of the color shows through from the side angle, that’s ok because it’s
black so it looks like the shadowing.
But other than that, our city scape is all complete.
I’m going to machine quilt the buildings up and down basically.
And then I’m going to do some fun stuff in the sky, in the background.
I might even try to add a little bit of sparkly thread so it looks like the twilight, you
know, the nighttime coming in.
And I promise to upload a photograph of it all quilted for you but this is the end of
the city scapes here at Man Sewing.