Some letters...from me to you!

I had an email question from Tammy in Canada about how I do my hand applique letters on my quilts.  I thought I would take a few moments and do a quick, sort of crude tutorial.

Letters can be a fun addition to a quilt where you want to add your name and/or historical info.  I love looking at antique quilts where the maker put her/his name, initials and/or a date.  It makes the quilt so much more personal to me.  Of course, they may not be appropriate on all tops.

I used them A LOT in my "Contentment" anniversary quilt top, which has a folksy, whimsical content.

I don't have an art background, but I will share what I do.  There may be alphabets commercially available out there to use, but I just construct my own.

I work with tracing paper, a ruler, a pencil, an ultra-thin Sharpie marker and a good eraser.

I find that the width of my letters are variable...You can make your letters any size you want.  First, I will show you how I make 2-1/2 inch tall letters.  I draw two parallel lines, 2-1/2 inches apart...easy when I use my 2-1/2 inch rotary ruler!

That determines the height.  Then I pencil in crude lines to help determine the width.  You can make them as fat or thin as you like.

"W's" are wide, "I's" are skinny.  I think it looks too formal and boxy to try and make all the letters the same width.

Then I just lightly sketch in skinny, rounded rectangles for each piece of the letter, overlapping my little "balloon" rectangles.

Then, I go over the whole letter shape with a Sharpie and round over the intersections of my sketched pencil "balloons."

I don't mind having inside "corners" to stitch (like the inside of the "R"), but I totally avoid pointy outside "corners."  

This rounded style makes hand stitching easier and faster for me later because I usually reinforce pointy things with extra stitches.  

Also with my glue-under method of needle turn applique, pointy areas have more layers of fabric and glue to stitch through...and they take a little longer to prep.

Here is an example of making 4 inch letters where some are lowercase.  I add a dotted guide line a little higher than the halfway point.

That dotted line could have even been a little higher...that would give more room to do the lowercase letters...especially their "insides," like on the lowercase "e."

Since Tammy from Canada made the request, I thought I would use a phrase she would like, but I should not have spelled "Oh" with an "h," LOL!  These letters are 2 inches tall.  I also showed some shorter ones, more the size that some people use to sign their quilts.

You may have noticed that when I go over them with my sharpie, I take a few liberties in making them a little fatter or skinnier in areas.  I just feel this adds some personality, but that is just my personal preference.  

I sometimes like to substitute shapes for a letter, like the "heart" for the "o" in "love."  

Since I usually do this doodling/tracing quickly, the personality comes mostly from me not tracing very accurately.   :o)

You can see below where I made adjustments in my cruder pencil sketch when I went over things with my Sharpie.  I also don't try too hard to make repeated letters in a word exactly the same.

If I need a lot of letters for a project, I construct an alphabet then just use tracing paper to shape my words or phrases (and if I was smart, I would save this one!).  I am not even sure I draw them the same way each time...sometimes my "J" has a line on the top, sometimes not.

Sometimes I will use a lowercase "i" just for fun with all the other capital letters.

You can see how I changed the shape as I went over this with my Sharpie...

Now I will use my constructed alphabet to compose some words on a curve, etc.

I just held this sheet with the curve on it OVER my alphabet page and traced whatever I wanted.

Examples 1 and 2, below, are done this way.  On example 3, I tried to demonstrate letters leaning...not enough letters or room to show this properly on this example!

On example 2, I sneaked in lowercase "i" and "y."

Here I am overlaying my alphabet while trying to draw "good luck," while alternating the "lean" of every letter.

My eye is less critical of things leaning attractively than things meant to be completely straight...and failing.

Here are some examples of ways to use letters to sign your quilt and really make it your own.

On my "Civil War Bride" quilt, I tried to have my signature blend in with the bottom right corner border stems.

On my "Baltimore Rhapsody - Symphony" quilt, I had no choice but to put it in a more noticeable spot, but I used a light color fabric so it wouldn't stick out too much.

It can also be fun to add a bit of humor, like in my version of "Bunnies Prefer Chocolate."

The folksy style of the letters work well when you are literally using a shoehorn to fit them in the block...sometimes they end up on top of each other.

I think they are a fun addition, even if only used to initial and date your top.  Have fun!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

UFO Chocolate Bunnies...

Even though I still need to do the binding on "All Around the Town," I put the town in my rear view mirror for a while and looked ahead to the next UFO on my design wall.  These chocolate bunnies from Anne Sutton's pattern "Bunnies Prefer Chocolate" have been calling to me for a while. 

I started this project a few years ago, before I adopted my current favorite method of prepping hand applique.  I'm a little embarrassed to show you the close ups, but in full disclosure I'm going to show you why I put this project on the back burner.

No matter what kind of quilting we do, our skills and methods evolve over time.  There are no instant experts...in fact, I'm suspicious of anyone calling themselves an expert at any time.  There is always something else to learn, even if the lesson is just that we don't know it all.

I used to prep all my applique pieces by hand basting under the edges.  I started that so long ago that I don't know if I read it somewhere or if I just started doing it.  I know it sounds time consuming, but I got really fast at doing it.  I had all my little pieces in a baggie and took them out anywhere I had to sit and wait to prep with odd colored thread.  This made me fast and efficient.

It would yield a fairly satisfying result with gentle curves, but tight little curvy pieces always presented a challenge.

Since fabric frays (and some worse than others!), I would always cut a 1/4 inch seam allowance.  Anything smaller was hard to baste and have it stay turned under.  This meant I had to baste all these tiny little pleats.  So if you look at little curved pieces like these rabbit ears, you see a slightly herky-jerky edge, not a smooth curve.

I look at these pointy little chick feet now and marvel that I got such points doing my old method!  I think by this time I had adopted a few needle turn tricks to do points...when I would baste, I would leave stuff that I would later cram under with my needle as I was stitching pieces down.

I never favored or tried to master the needle turn applique method because I like the idea of making applique in units that I could move around during the design process.  I didn't want to trace an applique shape on a background and have to strictly follow that pattern.  I like to change things and add or take away elements, as my mood and design changes.

I used to make all my vines by cutting 3/4 inch bias strips.  Then I would fold and press one third of the strip, then press the other 1/3 of the strip over that and baste.  It worked very well for me and gave me a lot of design freedom.  

But it also gave me a lot of bulky turn under allowances to deal with under my pieces and limited how small a piece I could applique.  Just look at the points on these bunny ears and eggs!  When those Perfect Circle templates came out, that helped considerably to make my round shapes actually round.

I used to not mind that herky-jerky imperfection and I just chalked it up to "folk art."  I just labeled myself a "folk art" hand applique person and let 'er rip!

Sometimes, I would try to round out the herky-jerkiness with my needle (a la needle turn) as I hand stitched my pieces to the backgrounds.

But then I saw my quilting friend MaryLiz (no blog) playing around with Elmer's glue sticks, and my basting days were over!!

Look at the curves with my new method of applique prep on these letters.  I never could have done this with basting, even though I did try.  I tried this method on my Civil War Bride and was very pleased with the results.

I just finished hand stitching all these words to make an outer border for this quilt.  This idea for a lettered phrase border breathed new life into this UFO and made me want to finish it, even though I wasn't happy with my pointy-eared little bunnies and eggs.  I had been playing around with Tonya's free-pieced letters and loved her idea of adding words, humor and personality to quilts (Lazy Gal Quilting).

I know I keep saying I will do a tutorial on this method, and I've started working on one (so you should see it soon!).  Until then, I'll show you how I wash out the glue after doing the hand applique, since that is where I am in this project.

I use two kinds of glue, Elmer's glue sticks to turn under the edges of my pieces and Roxanne's glue baste to hold my pieces in place while I stitch (instead of using pins).  Both of these glues are acid free, and there are those that choose not to wash them out.  I like to wash the glue out, still convincing myself that maybe some of my applique quilts will still be around in a 100 years and I am ultra paranoid about putting stuff on my cotton.

Here I have plunged my appliqued backgrounds in a tub of water to soak.  (I'm a fabric pre-washer due to sensitive skin, so I don't worry too much about colors running...you can snip a piece of a color catcher and throw it in the mix if you are worried...)  The glue stick comes out pretty quick.  Depending how long the Roxanne's has been there, it needs to soak a little to loosen.  It is also important to note here that a little Roxanne's goes a long way.  I try to do Ola's (no blog) "dot-dot-not-a-lot" method.

Even though I thought I used tiny drops of Roxanne's, here I see I could still be using LESS.  My tiny dots look a lot bigger now that they are revealed in their "smashed together" form.  Now you see them...

 ...now you, almost, don't (I see I need a little more soaking and gentle squeezing time...).

After I soaked and did a little gentle squeezing (and changed and re-filled the water a couple of times), I stretched out the pieces on a clean, old towel, rolled them up and did a little more gentle squeezing (not wringing!).  Now my pieces are laid out and ready to be pressed (not ironed!) with a hot, dry iron.

I put a dry towel on my pressing surface, put the right side of the applique down into the nap of the towel, gently stretch out the wrinkles, then press until "dry."

When I turn over my piece, it is mostly dry (it will air dry the rest of the way), and the applique is slightly raised because it was away from the iron's cruel pressing weight.  This also helps to avoid that "shiny, ironed" look raised work can sometimes get.

Here you can almost see how the letters look a little 3-D...I LOVE that look (Weasley is bored with the whole ridiculous process...). 

Now the pieces are ready to be trimmed and made into my border.  See ya later!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)