My Layered Applique Technique

There are many applique techniques around and in a sense, they can all be considered "layered" as small pieces are piled on top of each other, but there are very few that include full layers of fabric such as in the technique I have developed and taught over the years.

Traditional appliqué begins with a background fabric and adds shapes to the surface to create a design. I throw that idea out the window in this modern approach to creating art quilts. In my unique applique method, I add full layers on top of each other, trimming some away to create the illusion of depth and leaving others to promote dimensionality. Then using traditional applique to stack small pieces, one overlapping another, I create even more depth. Topstitching and heavy quilting contribute to the overall effect of perspective and shading. 

This is the basis of my Advanced Layered Applique technique - one which includes specialty fabrics such as metallics and organza.

You will find this technique in a number of my quilts, here are a few:

Falling Leaves

Scenic Lake (available as a pattern)

Red Red Wine (Available as a workshop)

Native NZ

This closeup of Native NZ shows the technique over lame. The darker sections are the cut out bits.

closeup of border on Native NZ quilt

Many of you will be most familiar with my Red Red Wine quilt which is the quilt we make in the online workshop. There is a lot of detailed work involved in this quilt.

More recently, I felt I needed a design slightly less detailed to use in this workshop. Landscapes are always nice but I feel Scenic Lake (shown above) was a little simplistic so I came up with a design that was somewhere in between that and Red Red Wine. It's called The Vineyard. I incorperated both landscape and grapes in this so I could stick with the original theme.

The Vineyard

closeup of grapes in The Vineyard quilt

Will you join me in this workshop, learning this interesting fun technique? You can find more details here: Advanced Layered Applique technique