Friday Morning at Applique Club

I joined an applique club last October.  It meets monthly, but I missed November and December.  This year I got back on the wagon.

I decided to start out easy, with a wool applique project.  I bought this pattern at Quilt Expo last fall from Angela Lawrence, a well-known and accomplished applique artist.

I think her bird is cotton, but I'm using wool for everything.  And I'm not making a pillow - I'll frame it.

Last night I pulled my colors.  There's lots here because I decided to use different colors for each tail feather.  Plus, I'm going to add a wing.  The cream will be the background.

I'll use something from here for the berries.  I haven't opened it yet because it's too cute to open.

Inside, there are five different charm squares.  I have a similar set in pink and also one in yellow.  

Here's a rough layout that I did last night.  Green body, darker green wing, and three different colors for the tail.  Nice rich brown for the branch, and one of those blues for the berries.  The blue charm squares are more muted than the other colors in the bird, so I need to be careful the berries don't disappear off the edge.  That's why I might use that brighter teal.  Not sure yet.

This is how it looks after applique club.  The pattern called for fusible web, which I was surprised to use on wool.  Let me tell you, it's not sticking very well.  I'll have to be careful so nothing falls off before I stitch it.

Things I noticed:

• I decided to make four feathers instead of three, so I ran downstairs to the shop and picked up that solid pink. The top two feathers have more mottling in them than the wool I used for the bottom two.  I like the mottled look better.
• In regular applique, you can overlap the pieces so you don't have to worry about space in between the parts.  I got a lot of good advice from other people in the club, and they assured me I could close up the joins with judicious stitching.
• I used the fuzzier side of the wool for all the pieces except for the background.  That was an accident.  I need to pay closer attention next time.
• Looks like my bird body wasn't cut on the straight grain.  Again, something to pay attention to next time.

On the whole, I was pleased with my morning's work.  I'm going to stitch these pieces down before adding anything more.