Quilted Accessories Session 1: Introduction

Generally, when you create a crazy quilt patch or a crazy quilt quilt from patches of crazy quilting, you are sewing fabrics to a base, and you're putting down little units of different sizes and shapes, and putting one down and stitching it, and flipping it over, and then adding another, and so on. This technique we're calling deconstructed crazy quilting because you're actually not going to be doing any piecing ahead of time. Instead, we're going to be using a base of batting and that batting is covered with an iron-on adhesive. And then we're gonna to take all those patches of fabrics and layer them on top of that iron-on adhesive-backed batting, and overlap them ever so slightly and find a nice composition with them, iron them in place, and then stitch them. And we can stitch them as part of the quilting process or we can stitch them and then add more quilting stitches later. But generally, why not do all of it at once, we do the quilting and the stitching at the same time. We can use very decorative stitches to do this with 'em. That fact that's what I'm gonna be doing today. Or you can use basic quilting stitches to do this with or we can use just straight line stitching and walking foot to do this. There's so many different ways to hold everything together. But what's really cool about this technique is that we get to make lots of different things with it. It becomes basically a base that we can build things from. Here, we have this great art quilt built from this deconstructed crazy quilting. All of the background space is simply a mixture of these gray and tan and cream and off-white fabrics that have been laid down on top of black batting that's on top of a black fabric, and then I stitched it. And then after I stitched it, I went in and added some focal points, and they're added the same way, they're put on with iron-on adhesive. And then some very simple stitching was put down to hold them in place. So this velvet in this much darker color makes for some great focal points on this deconstructed crazy quilted background. A really easy and fun way to create. The technique is used on these two small pieces also. So this one started with some black fabric instead of batting. It has batting underneath. I knew that I wanted an irregular edge and that's why I added the black fabric underneath. So the fabric itself had the Mistyfuse, which is my iron-on adhesive of choice, ironed on right in here. And then I laid down all of these fabrics that make up the background. And then I laid down these long strips to add just a little bit of interest, something to break up that kind of square background. And I stitched it with an all over stitch pattern. This happens to be a quilting pattern that I use all the time. Then I added more interest by going in and adding this decorative stitch pattern. And these are just big swirls done in white thread. And they're gone over, over and over and over again to build those up and make them the focal point. So we've got this great piece that has lots of depth. We've got those white stitches and underneath those we have these long strips and underneath those we have these squares and it's laying with this little black frame and behind that black frame we have this blue batting that's hanging out and behind that we have the frame that I've put it on which is a piece of canvas wrapped board. So with a very simple technique, we've made a very complex piece. This piece is done in the same way, only I did not use a background fabric. Everything is laid directly onto this kind of peachy colored batting. I laid out all of these warm colored squares, they're overlapping each other, then I laid out this pieces square that I had leftover from a different project, and I quilted all of this with a heavy stipple. Quilted a different design in here and then again added some more decorative stitch. So here we have very very heavy stitching with these square swirls and that completed our focal point. So this technique of deconstructed quilting is a wonderful base for so many wonderful quilts. But it's also cool for making accessories of sorts. Here, I've got my checkbook cover and you can see it's very nicely worn. I think this is about five or six years old and I know a lot of us don't carry checkbooks anymore, and I have to be honest with you, this doesn't stay in my purse, it stays in the glove compartment of my car because it has a lock. And that's what I use it for. Every once in a while, you have to write a check. And so this is deconstructed crazy quilting also. And just like this bag, it started out as a long rectangle and you can basically see that I simply folded those edges of the rectangle over to form the pockets for the checkbook. So it's not hard to do. You simply measure your checkbook. Use those measurements to make your long rectangle with and your fold overs and everything, and we'll go over that soon. Then I also made a cover for my laptop and today we're going to be making a cover for my iPad. So this laptop is just basically like any other quilt that you can imagine. It was a long rectangle. So this portion here, there's a fold here. It was just a big long rectangle and it had a backing fabric that is this red. And on top of that was a red batting that you can see or actually it's a black batting. So a black batting that you can see hanging out on edge there. And then on top of that black batting was iron-on adhesive. And then all of these fabrics were laid down and then this wonderful curvaceous quilting was added in two colors, both red and yellow to highlight the colors that were used in the piece. A little bit of a decorative edge here with all one fabric and then a twisted cord made from twisted fabric was added for some visual so that when I pull this around here, you can see that I've got that great flap. All deconstructed crazy quilting. So what you're going to need is a background or excuse me, a backing. So this is the backing fabric I'm going to be using. Some batting that may or may not end up showing. So I happened to have some dye painted batting. To dye paint batting is very simple. It needs to be a natural fiber so cotton is your best bet but you can also do bamboo. I stay away from anything that has high loft because the paint gets stuck in the loft. But you just need a fabric paint that you thin out with water. One part paint to three parts water. Dip your batting down inside it, wring out the excess, and lay your batting out to dry, when it's dry, you iron it and you now have colored batting, and it's permanently that color. So it's that easy. So I have the painted batting and I'm going to be putting an iron-on adhesive on it. Now, my iron-on adhesive of choice is Mistyfuse. The reason I like it is because it's very thin, it's easy to needle through, and it doesn't make the product stiff. Now, when I made my piece for my laptop, I put two layers of batting in there so that it had extra protection for my laptop because my laptop doesn't have its own packaging already. Whereas my iPad already has a hard case on it. I simply wanted something that I could put other things in with my iPad, like a pad of paper and a pencil and the plug and everything in, to make it more mobile. So I didn't need that softer surface. So I'm only using one layer of batting but if you have no hard case on whatever it is you're putting in your pouch, you can use two or three layers of batting to give it extra protection, but I've just got the one. Then you're gonna need a selection of fabrics. And one of the things that I highly suggest is if you've never played with fabrics that are other than regular quilting cottons, this is a great time to do it because you're not doing any piecing and you don't have to worry about how those diverse fabrics are going to piece together. So I've got lots of different fabrics here that I'm going to be playing with. I've got some silk velvet, some raw silk, some embroidered cottons, some dupioni silk, some silk charmeuse down here. I've even got some corduroy and some lightweight canvas. Just a bevy of different fabrics and I'm going to be ripping these, the ones that I can rip, 'cause there are some that don't like to rip and I'll be cutting those, ripping these and laying them down on my surface, making a composition that I like, and thinking about the flap for my pouch at the same time. I'm also going to be using sort of as a focal point, this one particular fabric that I painted with a stamp. And so all of the fabrics I chose basically go with this. And so I'll probably use some portion of this design as either a focal point or as the flap and we're just gonna kind of play with that. So when we envision this, I'm gonna be putting my small iPad in here and it is five inches by eight inches. Again, I wanted to be able to get a notepad in here and a pen in here and my plug in here, so I went ahead and cut my piece nine inches. So I've got some excess play in there. And then I cut it 15 inches long. It's basically gonna be folding up like so and then folding over like so, so that I open this up and insert my iPad in there and then close this back up. So that's the basic functionality about it. So when I go to do this, I have to keep that in mind. Now that was showing you inside out. It's going to be like this because this is the inside fabric and this is what's gonna have all the decorative fabric on it. I chose this lining fabric because I really liked this fray. And I want to make sure that this fray stays 'cause I think that's kind of cool. So I will keep that as part of my design element. As I begin to lay down my fabric, I'll also think about that flap. So now we're gonna go ahead and start ripping and laying down fabric.