Indonesian Arts and Crafts

by. Lesley Riley
Materials
• An assortment of fabrics in coordinating colors
• Ink-jet printer fabric
• Copyright-free image
• Scanner
• Ink-jet printer
• Straight pins
• Fabric scissors (Scissors that have been used to cut paper may be too dull for fabric cutting.)
• Wonder Under
• Batting (commercial batting, flannel, or felt)
• Hand-sewing needle or sewing machine
• Embellishments

Final size = 9" × 14"

Appliqué is a French word meaning “to apply.” In an appliquéd quilt, small pieces of fabric are applied to a larger, background fabric by sewing or fusing. Shapes can be recognizable, such as a door or tree, geometric, or simply freeform shapes. Traditionally, any fabric that lies under another piece of fabric and is not seen is trimmed away to reduce bulk when hand quilting. With my appliqué method, I find that trimming is not necessary. To prevent layers of fabric from slipping, I use a walking foot attachment on my sewing machine. A walking foot is an attachment or a built-in feature on your sewing machine that feeds the fabric layers evenly through the machine and prevents the layers from slipping. If you do not have a walking foot, use more pins to prevent slipping or puckering, or fuse all layers before machine stitching.

1. I scanned and printed an old photo onto fabric treated for ink-jet printers (see Resources).
2. Using the photo as a starting point, I chose a blue background fabric as the base for my appliqué because blue is complimentary to the orange in the photo and it provided a good, strong contrast. Three other fabrics in blue and orange tones were layered behind the photo to offset it from the background, and the composition was pinned in place. I tucked small pieces of my chosen border fabrics under the image to visually pull the outside edges of the quilt in towards the photo.
3. Using a straight stitch and my sewing machine, I stitched down all of the fabric layers to the background fabric, starting with the image and working outward. I started with the topmost layer, and stitched the exposed edges of every layer. This secured all layers underneath. This construction technique is similar to paper collage.
4. To mimic a border, I ironed Wonder Under to the back of the plaid fabric (a commercial fabric consisting of already pieced plaids.) Cut 4 strips, each 1.5" wide by the length of each side of the quilt top plus an additional 2 inches in length to make sure they overlap at the corners.
5. I used a simple finishing method to create the outer border, one that also serves as the quilt backing and edge finish: Cut a piece of batting 2.5" inches larger than finished quilt top. Cut backing fabric 3" larger on all sides than quilt top. Place backing fabric right side down, with batting on top. Fold backing fabric to front, mitering corners as if wrapping a package. Iron down. Place quilt top on top.
6. I removed the paper backing from the Wonder Undered strips and slid them under the quilt top edges and on top of the folded-over backing fabric to mimic a border. To form the border, I sandwiched the strips of fabric with Wonder Under on them between the quilt top edges and the folded-over backing fabric, then ironed them in place.
7. I stitched the quilt top to the batting and backing with a straight stitch going around the edges of the quilt top and again around the plaid borders.
8. To give the completed quilt a nice finished edge, I stitched around all four sides of the quilt 1/4" in from the finished edge, with a second line of stitching 1/4" inside of the first line of stitching.
9. I appliquéd a vintage leaf to the lower left corner of the image, with the tip of the leaf directing the eye towards the child’s face in the photo.