Applique and Quilting - my story

As an established quilter and designer, I often like to read about how others get started in the quilting world, where they began and why they are so passionate about quilting. Many times I am asked this same question - “how did I get started in applique and quilting?” – so I decided to write a post on my blog to share that information with my quilt friends around the world.

When did I first start Quilting? It began way back in 1982 when my mother-in-law wanted to learn to applique so she signed us both up for an applique quilt class. As a young dressmaker I had always worked with fabric, but never thought about making a quilt. This turned out to be a lot of fun and as you can see, I’m still doing it after all these years, but things have changed dramatically from that day and age.

When we went to the workshop we were told to think of a Nursery Rhyme, this being the theme of the quilt we would make. I chose “Little Bo Peep”, not sure why, perhaps it was because I was brought up on a sheep farm as a child or maybe I just liked the idea that a fence would look good in the foreground and was easy to make.

We equipped ourselves with cutting tools (scissors, no rotary cutter in quilting days back then) and fabrics, which included stretch knits, tulle, fleecy fabrics, felt and poly-cottons. Now I know you are laughing because we all know you just do not use these types of fabrics in quilting. In fact, as it was known, I didn’t have one piece of cotton fabric with me that day unless it happened to be a scrap from a skirt or dress I’d made previously.

During the workshop, we built up a small quilt, crib size. I had bright green poly-cotton grassy hills with a brown wooden fence in the foreground. On the hill behind the fence were some decent looking sheep made from wooly fleece fabric and dangly felt legs hanging below. I cannot quite remember if Little Bo Peep was present or not. All the applique shapes were zigzag stitched around, a sort of satin stitch but the zigzag wasn’t closed up enough to call it satin stitch, but it did attach the shapes to the background. There was no fusible webbing back then either. We stabilized all the shapes with iron-on interfacing. The pieces moved all over the place as we stitched (especially those stretch fabric shapes) and we worked around lots of pins, and I mean lots. Today, I use very few pins as I work, I could tell you why but I’ll leave that to your imagination.

That’s about all I can remember of my experience in the first applique class except that I truly did love my little quilt and was so proud of my effort. My daughters did too. Not only did they use it on their cribs (thanks to their mother) but played ‘house’ with it for many years later. Unfortunately, we no longer have this quilt. It was lost along the way somewhere in the many house moves we did. Neither do I have a photo, just a memory still stuck in my mind (of what I consider the most ugliest quilt in the world) that I can only share with words and a good laugh at the thought of how different the quilting world is today.

About the Author: Ruth Blanchet. To read more about Ruth’s progress in the quilting world, be sure to visit her website at
http://www.arbeedesigns.co.nz/about.php?sect=1
or join her at the Academy of quilting for some fun experiences in quilting and applique. http://www.academyofquilting.com