McKenna Explains Her Applique Quilt Method (Fons and Porter)

beautiful pictorial applique is far more accessible than you might think that's right marianne and on today's program you will learn how to do quick and easy fusible applique the mckenna ryan way how to make 3d elements to add to an applique project and how to finish an applique project with simple free motion stitching funding for fonz and porter's love of quilting is provided by for over 40 years baby lock has been dedicated to the love of sewing by creating machines for quilting sewing embroidery and surging baby lock for the love of sewing koala studios delivers sewing furniture custom built in america american professional quilting systems apqs offers a full line of hand-guided quilting machines made in america's heartland for america's artisans madera makers of embroidery quilting and sewing and serger thread color your life with madera reliable corporation makers of reliable irons no spitting no leaking no kidding hoffman california fabrics artful screen prints and bali batiks designed to inspire quilters omnigrid providing quilters with specialty rulers and accessories for over 25 years quilters club of america offering patterns and videos to the passionate [Music] quilter [Music] welcome to love of quilting you're watching series 2000 of our program and today's guest is applique artist mckenna ryan mckenna i'm so happy to have you here thank you it's really nice to be here your work is so beautiful and you've brought so many pieces but let's start out by looking at one that's on our big wall over here okay and this is bella bella garden bella garden you're uh you know i you were talking to me before we started the show about how your students and people who admire your work just wonder how do you put this all together yes well you know it's really a very simple process and that's what we're here to show you today a lot of people will look at this or any of the work and go oh that's so beautiful but there's no way i could do that and they're completely intimidated by all the little pieces and and all of the little bees and the butterflies exactly and they're just extremely intimidated so um we're here to show the folks that really it is a beautifully simple process well and i think you know you were telling me about how you sort of break it down to where that center portion of the garden that's like one section and then the lily pads and the frog that's a section and then the wisteria that's a section it's like it's like anything if you break it down to the elements it's not so intimidating and it all comes together and i think the birds that are in the blocks at the top and the bottom of the quilt you can see they're like they're like small applique blocks and so generally with my projects you can break them down to make them small individual art quilts or combine them all to make one big compilation and once you get the technique it something like this like i said will not be overwhelming any anymore so well what i think is so special about today is that you designed a project specifically for us to share with our viewers today so they can really see how easy it is so let's take a look at our little bird house in chickadee great so we have just one central element right we have just the bird house which is super simple to make and that's what i have here to demonstrate as well as all the other components so and we so we have a little chickadee standing to the side and this is so neat we're going to talk about how to do these three-dimensional butterflies so we've got one here and we've got one that's you know in profile so to speak on that side okay so here this is so you do a lot of patterns and you design fabrics yes at both batik fabrics and printed that's right printed fabrics and so your patterns are really a way to utilize those beautiful fabrics so here we have this is a way this is a pattern format that your students and your fans would they would recognize so every pattern has a cutting guide and a place right here so we can okay so here's the cutting guide this is all the pieces that we're going to use right okay yes and then this this placement guide this is where the artist and you have done the work for them right right so it's a little bit kind of like paint by numbers in a way okay so once we when we have a pattern then we're going to need to create appliques i'm just going to stick this over here just for a minute so here's our material so the first step is to take a lightweight fusible web and trace all of my pattern pieces which have been reversed already for everyone so it's a mirror image of the final piece right because when we use fusible web it's going to flip over exactly if a person were wanting to do hand applique with your patterns which they could then they're pointing the right way yeah exactly i appreciated how you got everything on one piece because i've lived in the country as you have you don't if you run out of fusible web on sunday afternoon you yeah there's no hope so exactly so you've used every little scrap exactly and and of course there's numbering too yes the numbering is going to you as you'll see as we progress it's very important to number as you go along because as you build the applique it's going to be kind of in sequential order so you'll want to have make sure that you do number or letter whatever's on the on the cutting guide okay so okay so um here i think we were talking earlier here's some of our birdhouse pieces right so in this case i went ahead and just um traced the birdhouse pieces and then a little tip for everyone is you know when you go to cut out around each of the elements i use a kind of a craft scissor i don't use my smaller scissors because i want to just go and make you know large cuts and you know kind of speed the process i call this rough cutting sometimes you rough cut them out we're going to do the finer cutting exactly and i like big scissors too because you don't have to open and shut them as many times and conserve some energy so you'll get all of the pieces cut out okay and here's some of the fabrics that i know that you used on our little bird house okay and this is fascinating to me because okay this is a beautiful boutique right okay but some people like me might just kind of just slap them on here yes i've kind of become pretty known for fussy cutting or you know placement of my fabrics it's really important to me it's kind of part of the artistry of um putting them together and so on this particular one i didn't just line them up to conserve fabric and you're going to see that i kind of do that but it's okay to conserve fabric if you want to yes but we don't necessarily want to not always not always and in this in this case um you know the birdhouse as you can see here you know i wanted to get a difference in you know here's the purple side and i knew that this was going to be the underneath piece here as if the roof kind of wrapped around behind give it some dimension um so in order to do that i wanted to be careful about where i chose so the roof is here in the purple and the underneath part is going to be in this section because it's a little darker yes it's darker it's a different color range um or maybe a different value on the on the bottom i made sure that you know somehow i got some difference so that you can see the different well and i think a lot of cultures we know the term fussy cutting we don't think about it with batiks as much and we also think about you know like putting a flower in the middle of grandmother's flower garden but in applique to do fussy cut it kind of opened up my mind just to see your work and to see how you do it and i also thought it was neat you know here's this beautiful piece of batik and this is some of the batiks that you have styled um some of them are similar yes but how you positioned your birdhouse body of the birdhouse so that that flower would be in a beautiful position and i just just having people take the time to decide maybe where is they where how would they like to have that okay all right so okay and then also this is another tip i thought was really good when we were talking ahead of time is you know your fabric wheel it comes on a bolt or it comes uh and folded in fat quarters and you want to think about preparing that fabric right and and so be sure to iron out all creases and wrinkles and things because once you put the fusible down if you iron right here you're going to have that that that crease in your applique it's going to be very difficult to get that out so and all your work is really flat and smooth and it's all these little things along the step of the way mckenna that really gets you there yes exactly and so i will you know make sure that those are out spray starch whatever it takes to get it nice and smooth it also gives a little bit more body when you're cutting around the edges yeah okay so next is our our placement pattern right well so we've cut then we have to cut on the line once we okay once we've put the fusible right on our pieces and here's kind of a set it's kind of a pile of stuff but these are pieces these are more pieces for the birdhouse so at this point i would take my smaller scissors i want to be a bit more precise and i'm going to cut right on the lines and this is where you want those nice pointed tips yes i love these and so this is a little tip too that i'd like to say you know a lot of i used to be a hand applique artist um but i quickly went to fusible because i wanted to do more intricate designs and in order to do that the fusible was a lot easier for me those little tiny pieces you really can't turn right under exactly yeah um and so when you're cutting like with some of my intricate trees and things you don't have to be like perfect because trees don't grow naturally right you know perfect so try to stay in the line but if you're off a little it's no one's going to know it's not like the precision of patchwork which is a whole different exactly okay okay so once you have your set of pieces okay these are birdhout pieces net what's next it's um so so then we're going to take and we're start going to start to build the applique so you'll take your placement guide again and i'm going to be kind of your helper here right please so we're going to lay this under and this is a an applique pressing sheet a teflon sheet where you can see the design the placement guide below and the pieces will adhere to this but it won't stay forever it's kind of magical it's a magical sheet so we're going to take our pieces and and again they're done by numbers so we're going to choose number one okay you peel the paper okay i'll peel and then if you you know if you see right here we're going to throw this i'm just going to drop this little waist basket so yeah like like all applique we're building from the background to the foreground so this is the number one piece so it goes down and i don't know how well people can see through this but you can see our guides are right under here so that's exactly okay so then you want to just tap that down yep and just enough that it just sort of stays in place and it won't move no mushing yeah no that's plenty okay that's plenty and then number two which is this piece okay and that goes here yep yeah okay tap that and so do you tap on one each as each one you put on okay so it's not going to move okay i got it number three it goes here um actually it goes up and kind of here we might not do it perfect on tv not always my very absolute best work people get the idea yes exactly and then i think this was number four and that's where we get this um little edge yes and it was darker and it really looks like it's dimensional yes okay and then you've got this guy okay yeah if you don't peel it you know pretty quick don't you exactly okay right okay so then we have the little bird my little chickadee and you know i've already assembled this one okay except for the beak and i wanted to demonstrate the beak just a little bit here so this used the applique pressing sheet also i do join these pieces and everybody's going to see in a minute how amazing this is when this becomes one giganto yep and it makes it super simple so our little iron is our friend that talks to us okay so this would be hard to hand applique so here's a little tip on these little little pieces and i'm sort of known i'm sort of known for my small little little pieces intricate pieces i don't think that was quite cut correctly but um you know use a pair of tweezers if you need to to place it and sometimes i will will build it right here other times i might pull this off and build him on the side and then move and then move him because you can peel it up yeah so i might have created him here put his little beak on i use these tweezers because your fingers just are not sometimes they're not there we go okay so then press that down that's good okay and then oh really the part this is good make sure that it cools um before you peel it up because if you don't then it's going to kind of adhere to you know how it will fold back and it's like taking a cookie off the cookie sheet before you don't want to do that not in too big a hurry so then you put this back where it was and then you'll see the chickadee chickadee outline and then you put that on there so okay now i can tap it right and we would just keep on in this way right so we had all the pieces down okay so through the magic there we go we can do the magic now i'm going to move this clear over here out of the way and here we have this whole applique right beautiful so once it's cooled and you have everything in place and we did everything the same way by number um look at this and here you go this is amazing so you're there's no guesswork you've done that all day for you a large application ta-da isn't that amazing so here so then we have our quilt top that's already been assembled and we can just place it right on there and something is that i think is really unique and noteworthy about your work is how these branches are going to break the border yes exactly i always have to think outside the box and okay now wait a minute i'm getting myself okay this comes up right about there and we could put we you can just decide i mean you'd have your pattern piece you'd have your your photograph you have your photos your photos this i think this is so you can do it over just a little bit like that exactly okay and it doesn't have to be exact to my to what i've done maybe you might want to do a little bit differently okay so is it ready to yes so at this point you would tap it to fuse it in place it's kind of like basting it with an iron yeah exactly yeah you don't want to go back and forth okay just and make sure everything is secure and i guess follow the manufacturer's instructions on the fusible to how long right and i think we've got steam going here i don't think you're supposed to i know okay so we've got our picture made here but we also have to put some butterflies on it right so we do okay and what you do yeah now that one that can go on and he can go just kind of anywhere i'm gonna put him kind of where he is on your right about like that yep that's perfect okay now we got to make our special butterfly okay so the butterfly pattern was there same thing same process okay where you're tracing pattern pieces and iron it to your favorite to your fabric then you cut it out on the lines okay so here are the two the top wings and the bottom wings with the paper attached right here they're actually falling off so once those came off then on your applique pressing sheet you would make a com a composite right applique exactly the butterfly exactly so you have the exterior the back side of the one side of the butterfly made okay and on this particular one there isn't any part that's um sewn sewn down it's all three-dimensional so you take that entire piece and you fuse it onto a separate piece of paper fabric okay and so you used a pretty contrasting purple here so now we have butterfly right top and butterfly back side right so it's a matter of cut you want me to cut sure if you'd like okay so yep i use the contrasting fabric just so that show how easy i mean how you need to go around the edges and i cut it nice right now this this time i'd be cutting it nice like not rough cut but right exactly okay you're going to try to cut right on the edges sometimes i'll even catch a little bit of this just so that there's no there's no jagged edges showing and most often i won't use a fabric that's so that has so much contrast but it makes it easy for everybody to see on this exactly so once i go all the way around that then we have this reversible basically reversible butterfly exactly so that the wings can fly yes and then that goes on right there but we wait we wait yes we set those aside until we're finished with the quilting okay so this we can set aside i'm just going to put it right out here because the magic of television we have one that's ready to go okay so this has backing right so it's been sandwiched right pressed and so now is the quilting part and the way i quilt it is with a free motion stitch around the edges using a monofilament thread which is in interesting to me that you use monofilament to a very great success because it's invisible yeah right exactly but that's nice because it you know you don't have to be exacting again you know and for me usually when i'm finishing up a project i'm on a deadline and i won't have to switch my threads that way right i can just do one thread and it just gives it a lovely finished look and adds some dimension and we're going to wait to put those butterflies on because you don't want to have to avoid them exactly although we actually would we have had that guy would go that guy would go on and he's where did he go well no okay wait wait i got it i got it i got it it's he's actually on this on this one yeah so he's going to go he's going here yeah yeah probably on later they'll go on later okay so here's your pins okay so so usually what how i do it is i baste with a straight pin around the element that i'm going to quilt so don't worry about this other part right not really no i mean i'll press the whole thing you know when i when i've sandwiched it but then i'll baste just around um so you're pinning away from where you're going to stitch but kind of close to where you're going to start which is interesting to me because i would have like pinned the whole thing and machine a lot of machine quilters use safety pins oh yes this is a kind of a different way to yeah flip it around so it's easy for you um right and and i i pin this section i finish it and then i take the pins out i press outwards and then with your hand hands or or the iron depending on what it needs but your your whole goal is to get all that fullness right continue to move it out the air yep okay yeah because on the larger quilts this is i use the same method on those larger quilts so i'm starting in the center and i'm moving out and that way it lies flat at the end okay so your machine is set up with the darning foot yes bead dogs down yep and i'm going to get this out of the way so people can see we don't have time to do very much stitching but i know everyone loves to see the quilt artist doing what they know how to do and so monofilament thread and just kind of clamping down the area you're going to work on and darning for you dropped the feed dogs right maybe you said that already right feed dogs are down and we'll put a list of special supplies or you know feet that we've used or anything at fonsonporter.com on the tv section so that you can print a pdf that has all the you know we can find out where mckenna's quilt is going to be in level quilting magazine so you'll want to know where that project is okay so you brought your thread up brought my thread up and then i you know i secure it and then away i go and i just go on the edges so you're appliqueing and quilting at the same at the same time so really you've kind of like kind of streamlined that that step because you know if i do i do a lot of blanket stitch applique then i have to go back and quilt it oh yeah the gloves yes i have to have my gloves i can start for a little while and then i go i'm missing something and that just helps you get a good grip on everything yes and i can keep it tight and it makes it much it just it's much easier i love the monofilament thread that's neat so just go around a little bit more of that because i want us to be sure to have time to look at some more of your beautiful quilts make that little turn and so on a larger quilt of course you're not turning the quilt at all you know i'm just going going around oh yeah right typical machine yeah exactly domestic machine quilting techniques exactly when it's a little project like this yeah you have the luxury of pivoting the luxury is right it feels luxurious for sure after doing the big ones well it's wonderful to watch you do this but i want us also to take time to take a look at some of the other quilts that you brought along okay okay let's talk about the one over on the other big wall okay that that's called petals of my heart too i actually originally designed that about i'd say nine years ago and i revisited it and i've used some of my newer fabrics that i've created and added new critters and the three-dimensional butterflies as you see you're obviously a nature lover oh yes absolutely their everything is always nature inspired in one way or another and now that we've seen how you um sort of isolate each one of these blocks it's kind of its own quilt i mean you're going to put it all together but i mean in terms of while you're getting the applique set up you're doing them one section at a time exactly and you no longer does that seem over overwhelming you know oh i could do that that fireweed in the same way it's like you can eat a whole carton ice cream if you just do it one spoonful all the time right and i love this farm scene this is great with the three-dimensional clothesline yep that's called storybook form and um yeah the clothesline was a big hit yeah no question so there's a little three-dimensional quilt hanging on the line and the clothes and it's got great perspective and that would be the same thing where you just work from the background to the foreground right exactly yeah and finally we got just a little more time left um these are the newest pieces yes this is called um these are called well they don't have actual names for each individual one but it's a new series i've started called naturally mckenna and it because it's taking me back to sort of my roots um when i started my business in montana and i'm always i have a following who's always telling me can i get back in the woods so i have to kind of go back and do some bear and mousse and and you know so when they ask you respond yep so i do i do well your work is absolutely beautiful and uh i think it's i mean i've learned a lot from you just in the short time we've been together and i know we've got a few more little tips up your sleeves so stick around for tips and we'll share some of mckenna's special tips with you [Music] grab a pencil tips and other useful information coming up next mckenna what's your first tip for us well one unique way to finish your quilt would be to go to an art store and get a stretch canvas and instead of finishing it with the border you can stretch a piece on a canvas and you would just have uh use a staple gun right right staple gun and you so you could do this as a nice gift it would take you about an hour isn't that a that's amazing exactly beautiful so it's kind of a fun unique way to to finish the other tip is placement again on fabric um fussy cutting fussy cutting so these leaves you know i had a piece of fabric um and i wanted it to kind of look like it was reflecting dancing reflecting rather than being all one color right and i noticed it's about other leaves in your work i mean they're really like they're glimmering and shimmering yes not so easy it doesn't happen just like that no no it doesn't it's kind of a specific thing um so this is what your fabric looks like after you've got leaves from it people kind of always know when i've been around so yeah because you know i don't want to necessarily go right in here because it's going to just be dark and it has speckles and it's not giving me the right effect so you want your leaves to look like sunlight is actually dappling on them so so she's taking really fussy cutting to a whole new level right i think so and you have a lot of irons at home right i do i have three ironing stations in my studio one is for the messy work of the fusible because that when you have the pencil mark on there it gets on your iron you don't want to iron your your top with that same iron it's got fusible maybe that's gotten stuck on it and so that's sort of like the quarantine island exactly so of the ironing station yeah when you're ironing the fusible onto the back side of the fabric and then i have my save my nice iron clean iron for any work on top okay so that your top anything that would show always goes to ironing station number two yes okay exactly and my third ironing station i like a small iron this is like a craft iron um and it just helps me to kind of press everything down it's not then i don't have something big that i'm working with especially because i have the little intro for precision those are great tips we love the tips that you send us as well if you have tips you'd like to share you can mail them to fonz and porter po box 171 winterset iowa 50273 or if you'd like to email them go to the tips section of our website fonzanporter.com and if we use one of your tips on a future show we'll send you a one year free subscription to our magazine fonts and porter's level quilting mckenna i've had a great time viewing your work and learning what goes into it thank you so much for coming today thank you so much for having me additional quilting ideas from marianne and liz are available in fonz and porter's love of quilting magazine a one-year subscription contains 60 or more projects easy to follow step-by-step instructions and our tips techniques and shortcuts in addition to the magazine you will get two dvds containing all 13 shows from the 2000 series and two additional booklets with extra projects tips and techniques the cost is 29.97 to order call 866 729 9601 or visit our website fonzanporter.com tv special you can visit our website for free quilt tips so easy quilting lessons and slide shows of spectacular quilts download free quilt patterns see supply lists for tv projects join our quilting community and more log on to fonzenporter.com funding for fonz and porter's love of quilting is provided by for over 40 years baby lock has been dedicated to the love of sewing by creating machines for quilting sewing embroidery and surging baby lock for the love of sewing koala studios delivers sewing furniture custom built in america american professional quilting systems apqs offers a full line of hand-guided quilting machines made in america's heartland for america's artisans madera makers of embroidery quilting and sewing and serger thread color your life with madera reliable corporation makers of reliable irons no spitting no leaking no kidding hoffman california fabrics artful screen prints and bali batiks designed to inspire quilters omnigrid providing quilters with specialty rulers and accessories for over 25 years quilters club of america offering patterns and videos to the passionate quilter [Applause] you

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Id: O-dfOlXK0Js

Length: 27min 47sec (1667 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021