When I graduated from high school I jumped in my Volkswagon bus and headed for the mountains
of Colorado. I ended up in this wonderful little snowboarding town called Winterpark.
Well check this out, the quilt behind me could be your very first adventure in art quilting.
Meet Winterpark.
Take a deep breath. The quilt behind me is much easier than it looks. It was so simple
to create but was so fun and long on the creative process. I can’t wait to show you how I’ve
done it. Now you’re going to need a few things. Before we get into the supplies bounce
down into the description. We have a printable for you. These are always free. And I’ve
tried to give you a base layout and shaded version so you can kind of see how I put the
background together. And then just a rough layout of my tree. But because we’re making
our tree as an art quilt we’re doing it on the fly kind of freestyle. Our trees will
look different in the next project, right? But that’s just kind of an idea of what
you’re doing. I’ve got the wonderful concrete texture from Moda that the tree is made from
itself, right? And then I’ve got this wonderful fusions something from Robert Kaufman that
is a ten by ten square pack. And funny enough it came with 42 pieces. I needed 40 for my
five by eight layout behind me. And there was a couple of pieces of fabric in the stack
that were kind of multi colored. You’ll notice these are not in my layout so I omitted
two and had my perfect 40 and we were ready to build our background. Quarter inch seam
allowances nice and simple. Got it pressed out and then I was ready to start building
the parts for the tree. So let’s get right into that.
You’re going to need some Heat N Bond Featherlite. It’s a lightweight paper backed fusible
web. Now when you look at this, if you haven’t used it before, there’s a shiny side and
that’s the glue. And there’s a paper side so that’s where you can do any kind of tracing
and/or drawing and that’s where you’re going to put your iron on this. When you’re
using a large piece of fabric and I think I’ve got about a yard and a half worth here
or a yard and a quarter. And you can see I’ve started to pre fuse the paper on the back.
But we still need to finish this off, ok? So what happens is you want a nice hot iron.
You want to make sure that your fusible web is not going to touch your ironing board at
all. And you’re going to take that hot iron. And it takes about three seconds or so in
each location to bond. When you’re doing these really big runs on fusible web you want
to go slow enough to really anchor it down. And if you find after you pre cut some of
your pieces out that the paper is not going absolutely bonded you can tack it like I’m
doing now. I’m re-tacking all of this. But because it is such a lightweight glue which
makes it awesome for machine quilting through later on I don’t want to over iron it because
we can start to cook the glue a little bit too much. And a lapel stick or some sort of
glue stick handy is always a nice option. I just wanted to talk you through this a little
bit as I’m getting this pressed down. You can see I’m just giving this a nice little
extra heating second fresh out of my suitcase and ready to be introduced to a rotary cutter.
Now you can see I’m all but finished with the pressing, the rebonding of my fusible
here. But I also want to point out I absolutely love my Panisonic iron here. It’s a cordless
iron so I do return it to the base quite often. I want to make sure it’s really really hot.
If you’re using a corded iron if you ever see or hear it kind of kick back on you know
the thermostat is trying to reheat in your iron. That would be another time to return
your iron to its base or seat area or whatever and let it recharge and get nice and hot so
it is ready to rock and roll. But look at that, perfect. I’m going to clear out a
little bit more space here because we are going to literally free cut all of these parts
and pieces from the tree.
Make sure you don’t have your fabric folded at all because you want to be able to use
each piece. And I’m going to tell you, I experimented and I experimented, and I experimented
with the design. The first time I cut my fabric I cut big shapes and put it together. And
the tree was roughly this size but didn’t have nearly as much character. The key to
working with art quilts is leaving the paper on your fusible web pieces until you’re
all the way done. As a matter of fact once we do our design and our layout I’m going
to let this percolate for awhile. So the very last thing we do basically is take the paper
off so that we can continually cut and reshape our applique pieces. So it can be as easy
as this.
I’m going to come down here and first remove my selvedge. I don’t want that to accidentally
end up on any of my pieces because like I said we’re just going to completely freestyle
this. I’m not using a ruler at all. But I am using my large 45 millimeter cutter for
this because I want to be able to make big clean long sharp cuts as needed. I want to
kind of curve off of the bottom on my first cut. So I literally just started coming up
and moving my cutter, let me slide this out of the way a little bit so you can start to
see the lines that are forming, right? So these first cuts I made were these big long
running cuts up the fabric. Maybe I want this to be part of that base. So I did this big
chunk. Something like this, ok? And then I just started whittling. But you can whittle
from both sides. So make sure if you have any markings of a selvedge on the other side
you would remove those also. What I found after working and working through this though
the skinnier pieces I still got the same square footage of the tree but with a lot more character.
So I’m going to encourage you to work in about a 1 ½ to three inch size and make skinnier
sections like that, ok? So I did, I came through and I made a bunch of chunks cutting from
all different locations within my piece of fabric. And then we’re just going to keep
these and we’re going to set them aside. We want this big one. I’ll show you how
this goes in but we’ll whittle it back down later most likely. Of course like I said we’re
just doing this on the fly. I also found I make these thick shapes like this or these
branches. But then later on if you look behind me I found the need for some of these small
little pieces which was really fun. So then what I could do, so let’s say I had a piece
that was just odd. Let’s call this one odd, right? That doesn’t look much like a tree
shape. But what you could do, watch this, you could do the little cuts like that and
those all become these wonderful little branches that you need as well. So we’re going to
save a pile of those. So what really happened as I was building my stacks is I started finding
myself in piles of small, medium and large pieces. So that when I needed something while
I was laying out my tree I could simply go back to those size piles and find what I was
after. Try to make sure you’re cutting in both directions as well so that you’re not
just making right handed wedges. You want left handed wedges as well for the other side
of the tree. So you could see that this alone could be all the fun, right? But I’m going
to whittle this through a little bit further. And then I’m going to put my quilt top onto
my design surface.
Now like I said I don’t peel the paper off until I”m sold on my design. Therefore I’m
going to design in completely flat because the paper doesn’t allow this to completely
stick to a design wall, right? So I”m going to take a piece of backing maybe two layers
that are bigger than my quilt and then lay it underneath my background so that when I’m
all sold on my design. I can simply go ahead and press all of the pieces down on location
once the paper has been peeled off. I’ll show you that here in a second. Oops, there
you go. And I’m cutting that little sliver I made away so that it doesn’t pop up later.
We don’t need that. Almost done whittling through here. The cutting alone is half the
fun I think if all your fingers are still here when we’re done. And I don’t know
if you can tell on the camera but there’s a little edge that didn’t have any fusible
on it and that edge is going to go right there in my storage facility for later as well so
that I make sure that I don’t put that into my project. So I’m going to slide these
out of the way. They’re perfectly organized as you can see. And I’m going to put some
batting down. I’ll be right back.
Welcome back. Check out my new set up here. Look at this. I have my rotary mat and cutter
over here so that I can do any trimming necessary. I’ve added in a very cool padded and batted
design board that I like to use. But I’m still working flat. Here you can see the back
side of the background. It’s the same background you see on the wall all behind me of those
ten squares, right? A quarter inch seam allowance very simple to construct. I am standing down
here at the bottom of the quilt. This is where the roots of the quilt start, right? So as
I mentioned earlier in my very first approach to the quilt I took these giant pieces like
this that would kind of represent the base of the tree, the roots, the trunk of the tree
coming up. And I started by placing them basically in the middle. As I was trying to explain
while cutting like a madman over there I also like to kind of have, come in here and put
in these skinny pieces and just see what’s going to develop. So I kind of look for some
of my flatter edge pieces so I can use this for my fill in. And then I just start working
my way up the trunk. I want to go maybe two, 2 ½ squares wide and come up several squares
before I start my branching. So I just keep looking for these bigger pieces like this.
And I can lay them in. Now here you’re going to see that straight edge come across here.
So I just want to point that out. Maybe I going to take it and lay it like this to make
some of those straight lines go away. Or if you didn’t like that, again this will probably
be moved or adjusted. I just want to give you that tip. If you didn’t something and
you knew it was going to be a problem that’s when you bring it back over to your cutting
area and you just fix it so it’s not a straight line anymore. Then you can bring it right
back into your project and it won’t show up at all. Very easy. You see that way. So
I generically and randomly make those big fast cuts and then I come back here and I
start to build our quilt. And I make adjustments per piece as necessary. We saw how nicely
that one fit in didn’t you, ok? So we’re coming through here continually building the
trunk of the tree.
But I also started to want to look for some of our branches so about three or four squares
up I started to build off of my branches, ok? So start looking for that. And you can
most certainly use a couple of strips in the branches as well. That’s how you get some
of the neat V work in the branches, ok? So my goal for all of us is to use up all of
our cool concrete texture fabric here right as we go through. But we’ll all have different
looking trees. We should all have a cool forest gallery or something on Man Sewing when we’re
all done. We could all put pictures of our cool trees in there and we could morph them
all together to make one giant forest quilt. Wouldn’t that be cool? I’m just going
to bring this down a little bit so I can reach what I’m after. Now let’s talk about a
piece like this. This piece obviously has some threads I don’t care for. Very very
straight. Again this is going to be we’re going to bring over to our cutting area and
we’re just going to fix that. So anything that you see when you’re playing with your
strips that you don’t like to begin with just fix it now. That way you don’t have
to hunt for it later, right? I’m going to keep building. We’re going to keep building.
And of course this goes on for quite awhile like this.
Let me show you how to do a few of those branches that I like so much, pretty intricate right
so here I’m going to take a bigger thicker piece. And I’m going to bring it over. And
I’m going to look at it. And I’m going to fit it looking at a couple of things. I’m
looking at where it meets into the tree and I’m looking at the angle it’s going to
provide. And then remember some of those small little pieces, the pieces we were kind of
thinking what are we going to need for next. It was these little pieces that I loved so
much that I came back in here and I started to add them in to look more like smaller branches
as well. One of the things I found in building my layout is at first everything kind of looked
very symmetrical but join me over at the quilt because it was something I had to work for
a little bit. One of the tricks I did is I brought this V down here in deeper. And then
I started to kind of duplicate them. Originally that was all kind of coming across right here
like you saw me doing on my layout table. So once you get all of your pieces in place
you can go back and shift them and shift them and get more character out of your tree. You’re
looking for lots and lots of these little spots that make it look like a tree would
really look like if it was out in winter and all the leaves had blown off, right?
So let’s pretend, fast forward, it’s tomorrow. You were in love with your design. Of course
I’ve got more pieces that I’m going to use up. But let’s say you were in love with
your design. You’ve let it marinate overnight, you’ve taken photographs of it so you see
it in the two dimension. You’ve done everything you can to audition your design and you’re
in love with it, right? Then all you have to simply do is come back to your pieces and
I did it by starting at the bottom. The biggest piece I possibly could I would slide out like
this leaving everything else in place. Then you have the fusible web paper still on the
back, right? Now this one’s a really easy one to show you because this is where I spliced
the two layers of fusible web. So therefore I can peel the paper off. And make sure you’ve
done it correctly you’ll see the shininess or the glue of the fusible web is now on your
fabric back, right? So I”m going to peel this easy edge off. Then I’m going to go
to this edge. And sometimes it peels wonderful like this one did. But let’s say it did
not. One of the tricks you can do is you can use a little straight pin from your pin cushion
and you can make a scoring line like that all the way across. And that will often help
you take that and fold it and then as you start to get in here with your fingers or
fingernail then you can see, and you see the sheen that’s on there, right? So the glue
is right where it belongs. I’ve probably mentioned it earlier if you find that you
start to peel the paper off and the glue is sticking kind of to the paper and kind of
your fabric and you’re getting these weird blisters and bubbles you can take that piece
back over to the ironing board. Make sure that you are protected though. And then you
go ahead and you hit that again for a second. Let it cool and the paper will peel off nice
and easy. This is why I’m dealing with the big pieces first so I can get back in here.
And it would be probably wise for me to mention at this point I love to work with either a
stiletto or a nice pair of tweezers so that I can come through and I can manipulate as
we go.
Now join me at the quilt, I want to show you a little bit about the quilting. And I want
to show you a little bit more what happened with my texture, right? Remember when I said
it was ok if your piece overlapped you actually want that. So as you come through some of
these I’m hoping you can see it in the camera where it looks like there’s more saturation
of the fabric, deeper coloring. It actually allows us when we stack up layers and layers
of these lighter colored fabrics to get more depth from behind which makes it look like
a tree really wood as the wood is actually twisted over the years, right? So having lots
of layers is actually a good thing. Then when it’s time to free motion machine quilt it
your job will be to free motion machine quilt on the edge of all of your applique pieces.
And so when I said earlier it gave me an area to actually quilt to, if I was finishing a
piece I would come up here, finish that piece, come back down, come up here, I’m catching
this piece. Come back up. And so as you go through your machine quilting not only are
you stitching the edges but you’re bringing kind of a tree bark texture through. You don’t
have to overdo it. I actually recommend you keep it pretty simple. Because that way you
can really focus on the background. If you over quilt the background and under quilt
your tree the quilt of the tree is going to actually kind of lift off a little bit giving
it even more dimension. So in the background I used another variegated thread. And I wanted
to do like those windmill swirls. I really wanted the whole quilt to have a chilly cool
feeling that made it look like a tree that was out there in the mountains of Colorado
like we used to snowboard in that wonderful town of Winterpark.
So I hope today’s project has got you very inspired to go and make your own awesome art
quilts. Like I said it is so much easier to do than it really looks. So I’m going to
encourage you to slow it down and really, really enjoy the process. Take a couple of
different approaches to your layout and make sure it’s just the way you want your tree.
And then remember to post those down in the comments so we can build a really cool gallery
of all of our winter tree quilts. And I will see you all next time after I get done with
my snowboarding project out in Winterpark here at Man Sewing.