Applique Mixed Media Art Quilt

A couple of years ago I wanted to experiment with some fusible applique and Heat and Bond. It seemed like a great way to create something really new and interesting. I had purchased some roving wool, but had never worked with it before. It came in an assortment of six colors to a packet.

I used fabric from my stash that had quaint houses and flowers in the print. I fused a piece of Heat and Bond to the back of the fabric and started cutting out the cute little houses and buildings. I created a background out of landscaping fabrics and some really interesting tree fabric. The layout of the piece at this time of the project became a lot of hit and miss. I really did not have a clear idea as to how I wanted to project to look in the end, so I auditioned the fabrics in many different ways before they started to come together.

My husband is always interested in what I am doing. Here I am placing some of the flowers on to the background to create a layering effect.

When I originally started this project, I did not have any plans of sharing it with the quilting community. Unfortunately, I did not take a lot of photos during the creation process. I used the roving wool to create the sun and the sky. Once I had all my fabric arranged to create a scene of hills, a forest of trees, and my flower gardens and houses, I fused it all down to my background of muslin. I then covered the entire quilt with bridal tulle. I added batting to the back and pinned it in place.

My husband bought me a beautiful Juki sewing machine and a new table. I just love it. The machine is a real work horse with a good motor. It does a great job of free motion quilting. I took the pin basted quilt to the machine and added a lot of stitching throughout the sky and actually over the entire piece.

Once the machine thread painting was done I still needed to find a way to finish the piece. I used strips of black bias tape and gave it the appearance that you were looking out a window. I added a backing and binding and did a little more machine quilting. I wanted to have this as an actual piece of artwork, so I decided to put it into a solid black frame to keep with the window effect.

My daughter Barb really likes the color green, and since that is the primary color I used, I knew she would enjoy this project. She was really surprised when she opened her gift.

Here we are with the finished quilt. I called this art quilt, “The View Out My Window.”