Primitives on exhibit

This gorgeous wool applique quilt will be part of a special exhibit of primitive/folk art style quilts at the 2016 International Quilt Festival in Houston. Fine Feathered Friends by Jolene Mershon of Mansfield, Texas, was one of 22 quilts chosen for the exhibit.

This quilt is alluring for many reasons, chief among them  the woolen fabrics. I could tell right away they'd been culled from clothing, not just purchased in quilt stores. The backgrounds are Daiwabo Japanese taupes. The combination of wool and yarn-dyed cottons create a textural feast for the eyes -- and a different kind of challenge to quilt.

I outlined quilted the applique, and quilted in some details in the larger applique pieces. Leaving big pieces unquilted is bad for a quilt. Uneven quilting will not only appear unsightly, but it creates weak spots, areas where the elements will pull and wear. For example, in the photo below, see the benefit of only a small amount of quilting in the orange flower, leaves and the eggs in the nest.

Where the background fabric already had textural pattern, I quilted along the pattern, not against it. And one of my favorite things: diagonal rows of channel quilting in the border. Three rows of lines close together, then a channel of unquilted space, make for a sensational traditional border design.
 

Engraved invitation for trapunto

Recently, a fellow longarm quilter told me she could not imagine using trapunto on any of her customers' quilts, nor has she ever been asked to do so.


Well, I see such opportunities all the time! No, my clients have never asked for it, but consider: People who don't quilt focus only on piecing, not on quilting, so why would they ask for it? It's up to the quilter to point out the possibilities.

 When this quilt crossed my path, trapunto was the first thing that came to mind. To my eyes, this is a wholecloth with applique and a couple of borders. The background is pieced, but it's still one big background that I needed to fill up with something. And the quilt is so simple, it literally needed another dimension.

So I set to work freehanding flowers like those depicted in the border print in various sizes. For this quilting, I used a tan cotton thread. The color was going to contrast somewhere no matter what color I used, so I picked a medium tone. And I trapuntoed the actual flowers in the border, with a shiny bronze polyester.

I quilted veins in most of the appliqued leaves with green thread. I quilted pumpkin seeds (also called orange peel or teacup) in the inner border.
For background quilting, I put tiny crescents in the body of the quilt, and I meandered in between the border flowers with black metallic thread, to catch the light. In the center of the applique, I quilted little flowers.

The idea for the quilt came from a book called Pick-A-Pattern Applique. Bonnie, my client, cut one applique piece to simplify the design and save herself the work of cutting individual stems and leaves. Look for her quilt in the Trinity Valley Quilters' Guild show in late September.

Yes, trapunto is more trouble, more time-consuming and more costly than typical quilting, but any effort that is really imaginative and sets your work apart from the herd is worth it.