I was reading The Jungle Books last night, and had this grand vision of making a tapestry-style quilt with all the characters laid out around a frame of Kaa, with the text of the Night-Song laid out in the middle. I have a couple pattern books just of animals, so it wouldn’t be difficult to do… the tricky bit is that I’d like to make them kind of overlapping each other, rather than existing in separate blocks.
I’m really not into applique, at all. I have plenty of experience making quilts, but zero experience designing patterns. I imagine something foundation- or paper-pieced, but… anyone have any suggestions where to start?
Thanks!
You don’t need to be experienced. Draw/trace the animals, trees, figures you want, and cut them out on paper to use as pattern pieces. Lay out as you’d like the final product to look, cut your pieces out of the corresponding fabrics, and sew 'em together. You’ll probably have some tricky corners, but that should work just fine.
I want to see finished product. Good luck!
Hey, thanks for the reply!
I guess I imagine that I’d need to lay things out in such a way as to figure out in what order to sew the pieces so I don’t end up with an inside corner and no way to attach it. I’m big on foundation piecing and learned quickly that you really do have to follow the order laid out, or you’ll sew yourself into a corner and have to rip seams apart. I found this book online that supposedly talks you through designing patterns from photos.
Maybe I’m making things too difficult for myself?
Just remember; quilters never wiln, and wilners never quilt.
You can “cheat” and fuse your pieces on. That way they will always stick somewhere, in whatever layering you want. Trace the figure onto fusible web, iron on to the back of the fabric, cut out the shape, peel off the backing and iron onto your main fabric. You can machine- or hand-stitch around the edges to secure them and the thread color is a feature then too.