Peonies...

(I've mentioned before that I'm part of an online group called The Twelve of Us.  Every 6 weeks or so, one of the members picks a new technique for each of us to try.  We make something following the guidelines and mail our attempts to another member.)

The most recent challenge was to make a Stained Glass Fabric Project.  I'm calling my little quilt, Peonies, for obvious reasons...

Peonies - 21.5" x 27"

I have to say that I really enjoyed working on this quilt.  It's the first time I've tried this technique, but I definitely see myself doing it again in the future.  Also, all of the fabrics in this came from my stash.  In fact, the pink in the Peonies is fabric I hand dyed a couple of years ago.

Closeup of a Peony

If you've never tried this before, the technique is pretty straight forward.  I got my pattern from an old stained glass book I have.  (In a previous life, I used to make real stained glass pieces.)  I enlarged it to the size I wanted and traced it on to a piece of muslin slightly bigger then I wanted the finished piece...

Muslin Background

I traced the reverse of each piece of the pattern on to fusible webbing.  (I used Heat N Bond Lite.)  Then I fused them to the back of my fabrics. 

Fabric pieces with fusible on the back

Each piece was then fused to the muslin background...

Pieces fused to the background

Probably the most time consuming part of this project was adding the lead lines.  You can make your own leading using a bias tape maker, fusible bias tape and bias strips of black fabric, but it is much, much easier to use the pre-made stuff.  I attempted to make my own and ended up throwing it all in the garbage (a couple of hours and a few burnt fingers later).  Fortunately, JoAnn's sells the pre-made bias binding and better yet, you can use your coupons for it!

I used lots of pins to hold each piece in place before I ironed it down.

Pinning the bias tape in place

Another slightly tricky part of this is that every piece of leading should lie under another piece.  In other words, no unfinished ends should be visible.  So there's a definite order to putting this stuff down.  However, if you pay attention, you can figure it out.

All of the leading is in place, but before quilting

To quilt it, I sewed on either side of each and every piece of leading.  I used my walking foot and a size 70 needle.  Someone else suggested using a double needle, but I didn't try that and don't know if it would be easier or not.  It's something to consider next time.

Back of Peonies

The stats for this quilt are:

• Size: 21.5" x 27"
• Fabrics: From my stash - including the hand-dyed pinks
• Batting: Warm &White
• Thread: Aurifil 50 wt
• Pattern: House Tours II by Judy Miller (a stained glass pattern book)
• Quilting: Straight line
• Completed: August 30, 2011
• Recipient: Karen A. from The Twelve of Us

  

Peonies

Now that Sam has started taking Prozac, she's started sleeping with her toes splayed out.  It's weird, but cute...

Sam, taking a nap

Until later...

...let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him... 

Hebrews 10:22 (NLT)