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 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 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 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.
