Faces

[Linda R.]

Barbara 1259 I am planning on using decorative stitches instead of blanket stitch on the outside edges of the face & neck & blouse & not sure what I am going to do with the eyes,etc. I am going to use swirls on the big pieces of fabric but what stitch could I use on the face, neck & blouse if I don't want to use straight stitching? In order for me to use my decorative stitching as I have in some I will have to do the quilting first? I am confused.

[Nancy R.]

Barbara 1259 I am planning on using decorative stitches instead of blanket stitch on the outside edges of the face & neck & blouse & not sure what I am going to do with the eyes,etc. I am going to use swirls on the big pieces of fabric but what stitch could I use on the face, neck & blouse if I don't want to use straight stitching? In order for me to use my decorative stitching as I have in some I will have to do the quilting first? I am confused.

2star -

As with everything quilting, you can do it whichever way you want to get the look that you want. But, in general, if you are going to use decorative stitches to secure the edges of your applique then you would do that before sandwiching and quilting. There are several reasons for this: because it's hard to get the sandwiched quilt evenly under the feed dogs so your decorative stitches can get distorted and because a lot of decorative stitches are wider and will create wider channels of flattened areas in the puffy quilt sandwich that may not be the look you are wanting. After securing your appliques, you'll have to make some quilting design decisions. You can quilt the quilt with an overall pattern, like the straight lines that Alex used, and ignore the applique edges in the quilting. Or you can quilt around the edges of the appliques using the quilting to further accentuate the applique. For the hair, if you are talking about sewing free-motion swirls to accentuate the hair, you can do that either before or after sandwiching the quilt. If you are doing an all-over quilt design, then I would probably stitch the swirls with a decorative thread before sandwiching. If you are customizing the quilting to the applique by quilting around the applique, I would probably stitch the hair swirls after sandwiching, so it becomes part of the quilting, to add texture and to add needed quilting to a larger applique piece. But it all really comes down to the look you want to achieve. Whatever you do, enjoy the process!

[Nancy R.]

First try, not finished. Having a fun time making my very first quilt!

[JBHerm]

My face still needs a wardrobe choice - that’s for tomorrow!

[Roxanne C.]

OMG, these are so awesome.

I'm a bit confused about the quilting part. The choices are overall or securing the edges using [insert method] and then quilt?

What are people doing? I would love to see examples. And if you were me, what would you do with this?

[Janet K.]

I blanket stitch before adding batting and .backing, I do use a tear away stabilizer.
Response to CLprince question

[Helen W.]

OMG, these are so awesome.

I'm a bit confused about the quilting part. The choices are overall or securing the edges using [insert method] and then quilt?

What are people doing? I would love to see examples. And if you were me, what would you do with this?

Roxanne, I would do the decorative stitching first before sandwiching. Like another quilter mentioned, it is hard not to distort the decorative stitches as you maneuver
around the edges with the batting bulk. This is not a face, but on this wall hanging I quilted the background first with out anything on it. I built the appliqués on parchment paper assembling them as a unit and then put tear away stabilizer behind them. Decorative stitched the raw edges of all pieces except the outside perimeter edge. Fused it to the quilted wall hanging; edge stitched the
applique perimeter using a 1.0 1.0 zig zag stitch in the color thread to match the applique fabric. Then binded it and added crystals to the top for some Bling. HelenW


In your situation I would use tear away stabilizer or light weight fusible (I use Pellon 906 sheer wt. fusible stabilizer) do the decorative stitches you want to put on it, then do the remaining edges with a 1.0 1.0 zig zag (you can bearly see it). You can match the threads or use clear so you don't have to change out thread colors. Then sandwich the block.
Echo stitch right around the edge of the body and face with hair. Then quilt the remaining areas as desired. Love you face!!! HelenW

[Linda J.]

Just got my supplies yesterday. Have been searching for fabrics from my stash already . Ready to get started. I did a young girl when I was in collage...a thousand years ago! It was not a free as what you are doing now. I enjoyed that one and now I can get crazy with this one.

[Padma]

Helen your hummingbird and flower wall quilt is just gorgeous and amazing! Thank you for the extra detail and advice.
Yes Alex said the same thing in her Monday video… Blanket stitch first and then quilt, or if you have a lot of small or skinny pieces, do overall quilting on the quilt sandwich, and then you can selectively edge stitch on top after.
A question for you Helen… So that means that your large section of flowers is only held onto the quilt by zigzag on the edge? Do you recommend that this is only for a wall hanging and not something that will be used and washed?

OMG, these are so awesome.

I'm a bit confused about the quilting part. The choices are overall or securing the edges using [insert method] and then quilt?

What are people doing? I would love to see examples. And if you were me, what would you do with this?

Roxanne, I would do the decorative stitching first before sandwiching. Like another quilter mentioned, it is hard not to distort the decorative stitches as you maneuver
around the edges with the batting bulk. This is not a face, but on this wall hanging I quilted the background first with out anything on it. I built the appliqués on parchment paper assembling them as a unit and then put tear away stabilizer behind them. Decorative stitched the raw edges of all pieces except the outside perimeter edge. Fused it to the quilted wall hanging; edge stitched the
applique perimeter using a 1.0 1.0 zig zag stitch in the color thread to match the applique fabric. Then binded it and added crystals to the top for some Bling. HelenW


In your situation I would use tear away stabilizer or light weight fusible (I use Pellon 906 sheer wt. fusible stabilizer) do the decorative stitches you want to put on it, then do the remaining edges with a 1.0 1.0 zig zag (you can bearly see it). You can match the threads or use clear so you don't have to change out thread colors. Then sandwich the block.
Echo stitch right around the edge of the body and face with hair. Then quilt the remaining areas as desired. Love you face!!! HelenW

[Padma]

Roxanne – – a couple days ago I put up my mermaid Quilt and I had blanket stitched all the edges. You may have to enlarge the photo if you are on the phone. I may add a couple more details, but then it’s onto quilting.

I'm a bit confused about the quilting part. The choices are overall or securing the edges using [insert method] and then quilt?

What are people doing? I would love to see examples. And if you were me, what would you do with this?

[Lori M.]

Ok I'm all done. So now how do we bind this? I'd like to have an invisible binding. Alex do you know how to do that binding method that only shows on the back?

[Helen W.]

Padma99, I made my applique flowers and hummingbirds using raw edge applique with steam a seam. I build the unit on a piece of parchment paper.
I do the decorative stitching with some tear away stabilizer. I pull off as much of that as I can when done decorative stitching. If there are small areas where the
fusible is still covered by stabilizer I will just pull a pieced of the stabilizer from a sheet of steam a seam. Lay it over the spot. Lay a piece of parchment down on top
of it and iron. Let it cool completely. Important. Pull it off the parchment paper. Place the applique on the already quilted background and fuse it down. Then I edge stitch
around it with 1.0 1.0 zig zag. If you were using it for a bed, rather than the wall. You can always go back in and stitch main parts. Like the on the flowers echo in the purple
area with purple thread, outlining the white spikes. You do want quilts to be even density of quilting I just do what ever it seems like it needs. The hummingbirds are a modified version of a Joann Hoffman pattern called Hummingbird Lane.

I have done one bed quilt that had a lot of applique , but my friend with a long arm quilted it. The people that got it have washed it without problems.
This is a picture of the quilt. HelenW

[Teresa N.]

Padma99...absolutely love the hair!

[Teresa N.]

Face Quilt all finished

[Roxanne C.]

I'm going to give your suggestions a shot HelenW and Padma. But I've never done any FMQ before and I'm pretty terrified. LOL.