Opal - More Adventures with Improv Applique

Opal

43” x 38”

A sweet soul, always there for others, full of love. Opal is a kind women, volunteering for her church, providing extra bandaids for the neighbourhood kids as they ride their bikes by her house, and always with a batch of cookie dough in her fridge. She loves a good cup of coffee and isn’t opposed to a little gossip on the side. Nothing mean hearted though! And you can always count on her for potato salad at the picnic.

A year ago I was teaching Improv Applique at the Edmonton District Quilt Show. I made up a new sample for the show - piecing a background of low volume scraps. With the guidance of the participants I cut this bowl shape to demo the techniques I teach. It was a fun shape and the impact was strong. Come fall, I would add another bowl, as I called them, here and there. During the depths of winter I finished the top and it sat patiently, waiting its turn for quilting. It’s me, so it could be waiting a long time for that!

But then I realized I did make a baby quilt for a recent addition to the extended family. Like, I totally forgot. As I consulted my Quilts Under Construction list looking for something appropriate, this applique treasure came up. It’s absolutely perfect for the recipients! Maybe it was meant to be?

I quickly made a backing. Birds and more birds! I know that the baby’s Mamas love to watch the birds in their yard, so it was perfect. And I think I used the Charley Harper fabric on the back of a doll quilt I made for their first kiddo. With some simple straight line quilting it was a quick finish - once I decided to do it!

To bind the quilt I raided my green stash. I’ve used green in their wedding quilt, the first baby’s quilt, and a doll quilt. Plus, the dark green went well with the one darker purple bowl.

Ready for all the baby snuggles. Well, once summer is over! Unless I make a quilt out of a mosquito net or rubber boat, I doubt it’s getting used this summer.

A New Foray Into Handstitching

This past summer the doctor finally confirmed something I’ve suspected for years. I have arthritis. It isn’t shocking, it runs in my family and I am 50 now. It’s my feet that plague me, but one look at my mother’s hands and I see what my future looks like. That may be the reason I am so obsessed with all the handwork these days. Getting my kicks in while I can!

It was also the move to the studio in the fall of 2024. Without a machine or place to put one at home anymore I found myself turning to handwork for both Morning Make and to fill time in the evenings. The kids are older, the girls are driving, and so my evenings are slowly coming back to me. I read a lot (more on that soon) but I’ve also really embraced handwork.

In my 27 years as a quilter, though, I’ve not done much hand piecing. There is that epic English Paper Piecing project which is ready for basting, finally. I can’t discount that. And once, many years ago, I pieced together a pile of scraps with no rhyme, reason, or technique. Of course, we know how much I love needle turn applique. So when, as we headed into some days off over the holidays I decided to bring home a stack of fabrics and my big book of blocks. Over a cup of tea I picked a block that looked interesting, without being a bit too much, and watched some You Tube tutorials so I was doing it right.

In 10 days of Morning Make, plus some hours here an there, I made 3 blocks. They are a completely odd size because my math skills were seriously lacking. I thought I was cutting those squares in the corner so the whole thing would finish at 15.5” x 15.5”. Not quite. They are actually 16 5/8” x 16 5/8”. As long as I am consistent, right?! I’ve decided I will make 16 in total. At least 16. I’m digging in to the stash for now. And supplies are minimal. I’ve already got pins and needles and had some lovely Aurifil 80W on hand that the dog hadn’t managed to eat yet.

They are very peaceful to make. And they come together much faster than you think they will. Not as fast as by machine, of course, but still fairly quick. It’s the cutting and marking of the fabrics that feels like a slog. So I just do it one block at a time and embrace the process. One stitch at a time, right?

A Notan Inspired Quilt Top

Have you heard of Notan? I know it as a Japanese paper cutting art form where the positive and negative space, or the light and dark aspects mirror each other. There are more in depth or different interpretations but they all come down to the interplay between the light and dark. I love it all.

In the early spring I’d finished two scrap quilts full of riotous colour. I decided I NEEDED to try out an idea that popped in my head. Just a couple of blocks, no expectations. Some hand applique, creative cutting, and only black and white fabric. I was thinking about Notan and how the concepts could be applied to fabric. So I grabbed two rectangles of fabric, one black and one white, and I cut them. And immediately I knew my idea did not work. At least not without some additional layers for success.

In the Notan of my inspiration you take one piece of paper, the black, let’s say. And you cut it. You then get the design of the black ON the white, with the white showcasing the design. On one side it will look like a white design with a black background and the other side will look like a black design on a white background, but the designs are the same/mirrored. And you only cut one of the papers, the light or the dark. This concept is absolutely doable in fabric too - with one cut only - provided you either have raw edges or do not factor in seam allowances.

In my interpretation I cut through the black and white fabrics at the same time. This is because if I only did one cut and then tried to mirror the pieces with applique the seam allowances would change things enough that it wouldn’t look like a mirror. In more detail, let’s say I cut a triangle from a rectangle of black. I appliqué the triangle itself on another white rectangle. The triangle gets smaller because I’ve turned under the edges for the needle turn applique. But I want a mirror piece so I then take the remaining square of black that has the triangle cut out of it and applique it on another square of white (one with the same outside dimensions as the square of black). Now the opening of the cut triangle becomes bigger because, again, seam allowances. So the two white triangles do not end up the same size. In the end, then, I would cut through a black and white fabric at the same time, plus cut additional background fabrics (two white and two black) so that I ended up with four blocks, or two mirrored sets. The way that I solved the problem of the different seam allowances was that I mirrored the blocks that had the center portions of the cut blocks in one set and mirrored the background appliqués in the other set.

This is the background cut piece (the white) appliquéd on to a piece of black. Think of it like reverse applique.

This is the coordinating cut center from the above white appliquéd on to a piece of black.

So these two blocks would NOT be paired together because the seam allowances would distort the Notan effect. I paired them with their coordinating cut with the black appliqués.

Clear as mud?

After I made my realizations and made the first sets of blocks it was clear that I wanted to make more. And more. It took a little planning to make the sizes work because I had cut my first blocks in a rather random and odd size (12.5” x 20.5”). To be honest, it took a lot more planning than I am used to! In the end, however, it came together with just the right amount of fabric before I ran out.

It is not a representation of the art of Notan, but I think the inspiration definitely shows. Now to figure out how I want to quilt it.