Each month Stuart Hillard answers your quilty questions!
Jill from South Wales emailed me recently asking for my advice on adding appliqué to quilts. I’ve certainly noticed from visits to many quilt shows over the years that appliqué quilts always have a crowd around them. We admire the work but find it daunting – but does it need to be? Here I share my guide to all things appliqué.
Appliqué is the art of adding one fabric onto another as a decorative patch or motif. Rather than piecing the fabrics together, a shape, for example a heart, is applied to a base fabric, and others are added to create a motif. Early examples of appliqué in quilting used ‘broderie perse’, where a single motif was cut out of an expensive printed chintz fabric and appliquéd to a more inexpensive plain or solid background fabric. This was a small piece of printed fabric that could be stretched to decorate a larger quilt. Appliqué in all forms is fun to do, highly decorative and adds a different element to quilt making.
Continue reading your story on the app
Continue reading your story in the magazine
Handy Hints For Project Success
If you are new to Popular Patchwork or sewing in general, following a pattern can be confusing. We want you to enjoy making the projects in the magazine, so to help you here are some questions we regularly get asked.
Block Of The Month - Point Squares
Block Of The Month - Point Squares
Novel Stitching
This spring, Jane Austen’s House Museum will unveil a very special quilt to commemorate Jane Austin’s life at Chawton in an exhibition entitled: Piecing Together Jane Austen. Elizabeth Betts describes a year in the making.
Patchwork Of My Life Ruth Singer
Ruth Singer left a much-loved job in museum curating to follow her heart and has since become known for her amazing talents in stitching and fabric manipulation. Her recent projects have ranged from being an artist in residence and honorary fellow at Leicester University Department of Genetics to extending her Criminal Quilts project, which was originally commissioned for the Shire Hall Gallery in Staffordshire. Here we find out more about this versatile and scholarly artist.
Ruaab - A Producer Company Of Women
How a group of women in India have taken their hand sewing skills into the international marketplace.
Abigail Booth of Forest + Found
Louisa Goult talks to quilter and textile artist Abigail Booth, half of the crafts partnership Forest + Found.
Down By The Riverside Competition
Back in May we launched a group design competition, in partnership with Lewis and Irene. Each group who entered was given a 10m length of the stunning ‘Down by the Riverside’ border print and the brief was to design a quilt to incorporate it. The entries were a varied and gorgeous mix of designs and choosing the winning quilts was a challenge. However, judging by the overwhelming response from visitors to the Popular Patchwork stand at The Festival of Quilts, we are confident in our final choice. Here we talk to the finalists about their experience of working as a group for this design challenge.
Stuart's Surgery
Each month Stuart Hillard answers your quilty questions!
Q&A Amy Butler
Amy Butler is known the world over for her stunning designs that include fabrics and textiles, sewing patterns, rugs, wallpaper, and fashion. She’s also the author of many best-selling craft books including her most recent, Piece Keeping. Here she tells us how she maintains her work-life balance as she launches her new Soul Mate fabric collection.
Orange Peel
This striking modern quilt repackages a very traditional block.
ALONE WITH MY FAITH
The pandemic left a lot of us feeling isolated. Including me. But it opened the door to something deeper in my music and in my soul
JILL BIDEN CAUGHT IN DURST MURDER TRIAL!
Ex-hubby exposes secret friendship and fling with psycho killer’s wife
The Power of the First Lady
How Lady Bird Johnson and Nancy Reagan advanced their husbands’ ambitions—and their own
4 minutes with... Jill Biden
Grieving with the First Family.
Jill's SWEET GIFT!
NEW FIRST LADY JILL BIDEN SENDS PROOF THAT MICHELLE OBAMA’S WHITE HOUSE LEGACY IS STILL GROWING STRONG.
Well equipped
FROM CARDIO AND CORE TO RESISTANCE TRAINING AND RECOVERY, WE’VE ROUNDED UP THE BEST AT-HOME WORKOUT GEAR FOR 2021.
THE EVIL MANSION
Resident Evil’s Spencer Mansion reimagined as a Skyrim challenge.
THE WRATH OF JIM BOB!
Duggar reality clan cans wayward daughter Jill
STAY ON TRACK with Jillian Michaels
We took some time to chat with fitness icon, Jillian Michaels who is always working on a number of projects, keeping people motivated to live their best lives with no excuses on getting their goals while also ensuring that we are mentally and nutritionally on the right track as well. She talks about her career and navigating a number of elements with it, suggests routines that we can do to include within our workout as well as how we can take what we do to the next level!
Sleeping with the Princess
In 1968, it was still universally accepted that a hunting dog would become “soft” if you let it sleep in the house at night. I had just purchased my first dog, a male Brittany, so I built a kennel outside, provided a nice doghouse and diligently put him up each night, even when it was snowing and blowing and the trek to his kennel door and back made me miserable.