"One Tip at a Time."  Hints about appliqué designs shown on Web page:
Sylvia Landman's Designs

This month, let's take a closer look at a small project that makes use of sheer fabrics judiciously but effectively.

This little journal quilt project measures only 8" x 11 1/ 2" but it began in the my usual way and pleases me very much. I never use graph paper, tracing paper, drawings or software. (In the latter case, it is because my design software and I are not yet good friends. I prefer to be spontaneous and unstructured and a bit outrageous but my primary method is this: I am  led by the raw materials in my studio which is why I maintain so many types of stashes. Read about them at the right.

The white, diagonal glimmer at bottom left to right is frosted Organza held in place by baby satin roses on a piece of ribbon. Note you can see right through it. The round, gold medallion at upper right is my hand-made crocheted lace studded with brass colored beads with silk leaves attached. The butterfly at top left is actually a flap of a beautiful envelope. I covered it with frosted organza and machine stitched it down with metallic gold thread. God the idea?

More about how this piece came to be next month but meanwhile, if you have questions, email me and your questions and my answer will appear next month in the Q & A Forum below.

Welcome to Appliqué for All Seasons:

Appliqué, taken from the French word to apply, means to decorate, ornament or embellish by cutting pieces of one fabric and applying them to the surface of another.  On this page, I hope to share with you not just my passion for appliqué but my favorite methods of producing it using sheer and unusual fabrics and copious amounts of different types of embellishment.

Sylvia Landman's Designs 

Send your applique questions to: www.Sylvias@Sylvias-studio.com

Applique Book Review of the Month

 April mini interview: Kay Mackenzie

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What inspired you to write Teapots 2?

As supplies of my first teapots book, Teapots to Appliqué, began to dwindle, I was faced with a choice. Order a fourth reprint, or make a new teapots book. With the thoughts and advice of friends in the industry, I decided to go with a book of new designs, and it’s been wonderful. Quilters love teapots!

The first Teapots book is now out of print. I know that shops have been running BOM programs with it, so I’ve developed a pattern pack, an unbound version with the pages folded and put in a baggie like a pattern. There aren’t any pictures inside or appliqué notes, but all 16 teapots are there if someone already has a favorite method. It’s available on my website. 

I reviewed all your previous books and am struck by the very clear, step-by-step instructions and diagrams, leaving nothing to chance. Tell us your secret of producing such unusual clarity in your text.

Thank you so much! It’s great to hear feedback like that. It may be the writer in me. I have a peculiar combination of nerdy interests in addition to quilting... writing, editing, computer illustration, page layout. I just try to picture every step along the way, and when appropriate, make an illustration that shows it.

What aspect of appliqué inspires you to make it your primary focus for your designs and books?

I was an appliqué person from the get-go. It’s who I am as a quilter. For my first two books I focused on patchwork, because I couldn’t figure out how I would go about writing instructions for an appliqué book. There are many comprehensive books already but it hit me that I could only write about what I knew, so I got brave and did Teapots to Appliqué, and several more after that. My emphasis that you can use whatever method you like. I illustrated and wrote up my own personal tips for hand appliqué, which at the time was freezer-paper templates on top. This approach worked out fine.

You mentioned your recent conversion to back-basting. Why do you like it and use it replacing your previous design template method?

You know the saying that the universe has to put something in front of you seven times before It makes an impression? That’s how it was for me and back-basting.  I heard of it many times, looked at photo tutorials, but never really wrapped my brain around it until talking with a gal at a quilt show. She had her project in the car, and fetched it, and showed me. Eureka! I got it!

Later, I was prepping a lot of blocks for a project, and suddenly. I stopped tracing freezer-paper templates and switched over to back-basting. By the second block, I was convinced of its benefits, and haven’t used freezer paper templates since. I really enjoy the back-basting (aka no-template) prep method because all you have to do is choose your fabrics, cut the background square, trace the pattern on the back of it, and you’re ready to stitch!  Teapots 2 has the step-by-step instructions for this ingenious prep method, and I’ve also developed a kit to introduce hand appliquérs to it.

What advice would you like to offer visitors to this site about appliqué in general?

There are so many ways to appliqué, and even within each category there are variations. Appliquérs sometimes stick with what they’ve learned first. Others gravitate toward a certain method that works for them and gives them satisfaction in their results. That method is not the same for everybody, and they’re all good! Keep appliquéing!

 “A Merry Little Christmas to Appliqué.” Kay Mackenzie, puts you in the Christmas spirit with easy to use traditional Christmas motifs to appliqué such as Santa, stockings, gingerbread boys and more in Kay’s usual style of simple, basic, enjoyable appliqué designs.

“A Perfect Union of Patchwork & Appliqué” Darlene Christopherson. Sampler quilt of 25 blocks alternating traditional pieced blocks with charming appliqué blocks in folk art style. Prefers freezer paper templates and needleturn appliqué.

“Abundant Harvest Theorem Appliqué: Books I & II.” Patricia Campbell. Author prefers overlay for transfer process and needleturn appliqué exclusively.

“Affair of the Heart,” Aie Rossman. “Stunning 36 flower blocks for a 62” square quilt or single blocks using Batik fabric. Designs are romantic, centered on heart shapes, tendrils and fantasy flower petal shapes. Transfers designs with dressmaker’s carbon, and prefers needleturn. What makes this book special is that each design fits on one sheet of paper drawn in two colored, bold lines for easy tracing. Black is for the appliqué patches and red for embroidered stems and tendrils.

“Appliqué 12 Easy Ways.” Elly Sienkiewicz offers and illustrates 12 different, tried and true methods for appliqué. Well illustrated, excellent instructions.

“Appliqué in Bloom.” Gabrielle Swain uses a light box to trace to freezer paper only, not onto fabric. Prefers freezer paper to shape each piece, positions fabric over pattern and traces each piece to appliqué. Beautiful realistic flowers and leaves enhanced by using colored pencils.

“Applique Inside the Lines---12 Quilt Projects to Embroider & Applique.” You must try  Carol Armstrong’s Rainbow feathers, unusual, soft, flowing lines combine embroidery appliqué with another of Carol’s unusual quilted backgrounds radiating from the design itself. You’ll learn a lot making a small 27 ½” x 15 ½”quilt.

“Appliqué Made Easy.” A favorite reference book, with every page in color. Illustrates all possible methods to prepare designs, templates, trace, cut and stitch.

“Applique Sampler, Learn to Applique the Piece O’Cake Way.” Linda Jenkins & Becky Goldsmith are known for easy, clear instructions for folk-art appliqué styles, designs and blocks. Authors prefer variations of overlay method to transfer designs and needleturn hand appliqué.

“Applique Takes Wing—Exquisite Designs for Birds, Butterflies & More.” Jane Townswick uses freezer paper techniques to create realistic creatures, marvelous shading techniques and appliqué, needleturn only.

“Aquatic Creatures: Fish, Fronts, Turtles & Toads.” By Darcy Ashton. Here is a great collection of those color book outline drawings just perfect for appliqué.

“Artful Album Quilts, Applique Inspirations from Traditional Blocks.” Jane Townswick, appliqué expert and perfectionist provides 16 different blocks using nostalgic, antique designs. Stylized flowers in trees, vases and wreaths enhanced with birds and peacocks are very appealing. Not to be missed-her section on “Tiny, appliqué stitches.” Using Jane’s methods, stitches are nearly invisible. Needleturn appliqué.

“Artful Appliqué the Easy Way.” Jane Townswick. A beautiful book with consecutive designs that teach specific and advancing techniques as book proceeds. Author is an expert in needleturn, nearly invisible appliqué stitches by hand.

“At Play with Applique.” Dilys Fronks features gorgeous floral appliqué designs for hand and machine methods, back-basting transfer method, no templates.

“Baskets to Applique.” Another of Kay Mackenzie’s charming assortments, this time with 16 different baskets filled with flowers and more. Easy to make, basic instructions provided. Author prefers freezer paper templates, needleturn appliqué.

“Butterflies & Blooms---Designs for Applique & Quilting.” Carol Armstrong provides realistic, botanically correct flora, birds and creatures. Author prefers “Light-box appliqué”, meaning directly tracing each patch onto the fabric followed by needleturn hand appliqué. This book’s charm is the background quilting, varied, unique, following some of the design shapes in small sections rather than all-over quilting patterns.

“Caryl Bryer Fallert: A Spectrum of Quilts 1983-1995.” The magnificent appliqué/pieced quilts of the author with marvelous photos and details of her design process. Simply inspiring.

“Color-Blend Appliqué,” by Jane Townswick. One of the most masterful of appliqué teacher/designers, shares her intricate methods of creating realistic appliqué floral so natural and detailed that her work looks like photography. Prefers needleturn and freezer paper templates.

“Creative Machine Stitching, Special Effects for Quilts & More,” by Patricia Nelson is not strictly an appliqué book but belongs on your bookshelf if you enjoy adding special touches to your appliqué projects by machine such as, embroidery, yarns, ribbons, bobbin work, fringe, candlewicking, beading and of course, machine applique. Author uses stabilizers and hoops for designing and varied machine appliqué methods.

“Dazzling Quilts—Easy Glitz & Instant Glamour.” Pamela Mostek’s strong focus on Broderie Perse Applique with imaginative, heavy use of beads and machine decorative embroidery stitches to attach and embellish flowing leaves and flowers.

“Dog Cabin & Others--Fast Fun Theme-Quilt Projects by Kay Mackenzie. Basic appliqué collection of easy to make children’s quilts featuring a large theme fabric in the center of each large, easy to make block. Author prefers freezer paper templates, needleturn appliqué.

“Down Under Quilts Magazine, Australia’s 1^st Patchwork & Quilting Magazine." Emphasis on both hand and machine appliqué including pattern sheet inserts.

“Enchanted Views, Quilts Inspired by Wrought Iron Designs.” Dilys Fronks is primarily a reverse appliqué enthusiast. Book features lovely gardens, landscapes and fields of flowers seemingly peeking through appliquéd wrought-iron gates.

“Fabulous Flowers,  Mini Quilts in Dimensional Applique” by Sharon Baker. Lots of ideas and techniques for folding, wrapping and gathering petals and leaves to create dimensional floral designs. Inspiring.

“Fancy Applique.” Expert appliqué designer, Elly Sienkiewicz offers 12 more lessons for experienced appliqué lovers including reverse appliqué, lacework, working with Ultra Suede, embroidery and ribbon. Beautiful, romantic, traditional designs feature needleturn appliqué and most work done by hand.

“Floral Appliqué.” Nancy Pearson. Prefers a template for each appliqué piece and finger creases each seam allowance then appliqués using needleturn, perfectionist techniques all by hand. Learn to applique perfect twisted ribbons, bows and fluttering bird wings.

“Free Expression, The Art & Confessions of a Contemporary Quilter.” Robbi Joy Eklow. Book includes a CD. Emphasis is raw-edge appliqué with as much done by machine as possible. Her modern art designs, excellent color lessons color, hand-dyed fabric make this one of the best books on machine quilting.

“Free-Style Quilts, A No Rules Approach.” Susan Carlson prefers tracing paper templates for her realistic collage approach to appliqué. Her ideas of how to audition and choose background fabric for appliqué is novel, resulting in artistic, special effects. Many patterns for fish and other creatures included.

“Garden Party, Applique Quilts That Bloom.” Cynthia Tomaszewski offers stylized, realistic and flowing romantic floral and heart pplique designs. The book includes easy to trace outline designs with numbered positions and colored shapes for each applique piece to make her designs easily. Uses light box to transfer designs, freezer paper templates and needleturn techniques. 

“Growing Hearts to Applique.” If you love heart shaped appliqué, this book is for you. Kay Mackenzie features 16 blocks featuring hearts pulled together into one folk-art style sampler quilt. Easy to make, basic instructions provided. Author prefers freezer paper templates.

“Hearts and Flowers—Hand Applique From Start to Finish” by Kathy Delaney. One of the more beautiful appliqué books with many flowing, romantic designs. Basic instructions for author’s preferred working style are very clear, easy to follow. Learn the vinyl overlay method and needleturn appliqué from an expert.

“In a Twinkle, Youthful Quilt Designs.” Kay Mackenzie. Basic appliqué collection of children’s quilts. Easy to make. Author prefers freezer paper templates.

"Invisible Applique" by Ami Sims is an innovative method of applique using what she calls, "Invisible Applique Stitch." Though it must be seen in her diagrams to fully understand, it is a combination of hand-stitching ladder-like stitches which are then gathered which folds seam allowances under right on the marked design line.

“Jacobean Rhapsodies.” Pat Campbell & Mimi Ayers prefer to needleturn each piece in place using the vinyl overlay design method. Does not use templates.

“Luminous Landscapes.”  Gloria Loughman illustrates machine appliqué embellished with paint and thread. Section on color/design fundamentals is outstanding. Uses freezer paper templates in some designs as well as excellent instructions on cutting shapes free form.

“Machine Made Lace.” Judy Simmons uses templates for each piece, and prefers fusing to fabric. She is an expert in fabric dyeing and appliqué by machine. Exquisite, realistic dimensional flowers.

“Mastering Machine Appliqué.” Harriet Hargrave uses a light box to trace designs and freezer paper and to glue seam allowances in place over paper.

 “Quilted Garden, The.” Jane Sassaman offers contemporary, abstract designs, lots of information about her design process. She uses stabilizers doubling as templates to create interesting, innovative shapes. My quilt begun in her workshop linking & over-lapping circles was great fun.

“Quilting with Carol Armstrong---30 Quilting Patterns, Applique Designs and Projects.” By Carol Armstrong. With a background in botanical study, Carol’s flowers, greenery and creatures are picture perfect. Her ability with unusual quilted designs taken from the appliqué and used in the background, are charming & unique.

“Ricky Tims’ Rhapsody Quilts.” See extensive book review of Ricky Tims' new book for March, 2008 on this site. Click here:  Book Reviews

“Romantic Appliqué.” Yvonne Overton uses a light box to trace each appliqué patch then needleturns each piece in place. Designs  many curvy ribbons and bows that flow, twist and turn over themselves to enhance her floral designs.

“Shadow Applique, A Fresh Take on a Traditional Technique.” Hetty van Boven uses fusible web to transfer designs, covering them with Organza to machine quilt.

“Teapots to Applique.” Kay Mackenzie uses fusible web and freezer paper to transfer designs and make templates, prefers needleturn appliqué. Lovely,16 old-fashioned teapots in varying, charming shapes. Easy to make, basic instructions provided. Author prefers freezer paper templates, needleturn appliqué.

“Thread Magic, The Enchanted World of Ellen Anne Eddy” and indeed this book enchants. Though the author’s focus is using threads, she does marvelous things making appliqué designs come alive. Author uses stabilizers and freezer paper, machine quilts only. Her section on basic color and design is superb!

“Turkish Delights t o Applique,” Linda M. Poole Exotic appliqué designs with detailed, clear instructions on using the author’s preferred appliqué style of freezer paper templates. Her assembly process is very helpful to all appliqué lovers.