Wall Hangings 2006-2007

In September 2006, I attended the Quilter's Unlimited show in Dulles, VA, and saw some really delicate and beautiful flowers cut from fabric adhered to a wall hanging in one of the booths. The vendor told me the quilt was made by McKenna Ryan, and encouraged me to sign up for a class later that day - I did sign up. The project was a really goofy fish, and not the intricate flowers I so wanted to learn how to make. Nevertheless, I learned about fusible web and how to use it, and I started making wall hangings after that. The class opened my eyes to a new technique and I, having always abhored traditional needle-turn hand applique (having attempted to learn it from a woman who taught me Hawaiian applique), now felt free to put imagination to fabric and let loose my design and creativity muses. The wall-hanging above was made for Rachel, who loves sunflowers. It was my first attempt using fusible web. I also used my then-new Bernina to embroider-stitch around the edges of the fused fabric pieces.

This was my second wall-hanging using fusible web. I entered it into an exhibit at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum where it hung for a few weeks. How exciting! (2007: The Mentor) This wall-hanging (2007: A Bird's Paradise) used fusible web as well as paper-piecing (the sun, the curving 'birds' and the triangle fish below):I had learned paper-piecing first at a beginners class at the Quilted Apple in Phoenix in 2005, then at the Cotton Patch in Lafayette, CA in 2006, where I took Karen K. Stone's Indian Orange Peel class taught by Vicki Wind; and finally, I took another paper-piecing class, Judy Niemeyer's Raindrops at the Quilt Patch in Fairfax, VA in 2006.
Wall-hanging made in 2007 - The Old Tree and the Wall, Longtime Friends in Granada: