4 Ways to Make a Dimensional Quilt

Joan Shay recently finished up a year's worth of designs for Quilt Trends magazine, all using her Appli-bond technique to create dimensional features, and of course, our fabrics. We're excited to share all four with you here on the blog, along with Joan's thoughts about her designs!

 Cape Cod Memories

The Idea

We used to live on Cape Cod, an area known for these flowers. To me, summer is hydrangeas. It's been a bit of a family flower—our daughter even carried in them in her wedding. Creating three-dimensional hydrangeas is what started my whole style of quilting, actually. There was no question the summer project would have hydrangeas in it. The geese on the borders represent seagulls on the Cape, and the scallop shells and starfish in the corners signify the Cape as well. They are embellished with hand stitching: stem stitches and French knots.

The Technique

I wanted to put the flowers on a straw wreath, so I drew the wreath shape on a piece of water-soluble stabilizer, layered my scraps, and added another piece of stabilizer on top. After zigzag stitching all over the wreath, I washed the stabilizer away. I made clusters of pink, blue and purple flowers on the wreath, using my Appli-Bond technique.

The Fabric

Budding Beauties [by Ro Gregg] is a hydrangea collection—perfect for this quilt. I used the bigger, bolder print for the Flying Geese and smaller flower for the inner border. Purple and lime green are what people are gravitating to right now, so the colors worked well. I really like the color combination of this quilt. I actually made this quilt when I was away on a retreat with my guild, and everyone wanted it!

See the Budding Beauties fabric collection here.

See the Focus collection here.

See the Marblehead prints here.

Find the kit here.

Find the summer 2013 issue of Quilt Trends here.

Spring Fever

The Idea

This quilt isn't intended to be realistic like my others; rather, it's an abstract flower. I saw the border print [from Wildflowers] and worked backwards on this design. I really wanted the quilt to have the vibrant colors of spring. When I found that print, everything came into focus from there.

The Technique

The flowers are just an abstract bloom, but very dimensional. In the corners, I just love doing miniature fans/Dresden plates. Instead of using the traditional quarter circle at the base, I placed one of the abstract flowers there. My favorite part of this quilt is the butterfly. My class on creating a dimensional monarch butterfly is one of the most popular ones I teach. You actually make the butterfly fabric, building it piece by piece.

The Fabric

I used two different green tones from Focus for the background. The darker green sections are longer than the lighter greens, so it's not a typical four-patch. The colors in the flowers, butterfly, and bee help tie the border print in.

See the Wildflowers collection here.

See the Focus collection here.

See the Marblehead prints here.

Find the kit here.

Find the spring 2013 issue of Quilt Trends here.

Winter's Eve

The Idea

I wanted to do an owl, and it all started there. Because it was a winter quilt, I decided to make the background a night sky with a big moon and snow capped tree. The challenging part was that I wanted to do a pieced background that would show the shadows from the moon on the sky.

  

The Technique

I built the dimensional owl first—that's the advantage of my Appli-bond technique—you can have the owl in your hand totally made, built on a foundation of bonded fabric, and place it anywhere you want. I was really pleased with the owl—especially the eyes. They're like Mona Lisa; they follow you were you go.

The Fabric

My style depends on shading more than anything, so I can't use solid prints. Because my quilts are more pictorial, I always try to make my quilts realistic looking. To me, getting the right fabrics is half the battle.

Marbleheads work perfectly for everything I do; this quilt also uses tonals from Focus. Using the lighter and darker blues together was the fun part of doing the quilt.

See the Focus collection here.

See the Marblehead prints here.

Find the kit here.

Find the winter 2013 issue of Quilt Trends here.

Harvest Home 

The quilt that started this four-season series! See our original blog post on Harvest Home here.