Fuse a sheet of Fusible, like Heat and Bond Lite in this case to the back of all of the pieces of fabrics that you will be using. This is before you cut anything out. After it has cooled remove the paper on the back and KEEP it for a pressing sheet.
Press it to the pressing sheet.
Add your next piece and overlap just slightly (maybe 1/8 inch). Press to the paper pressing sheet. Cut off anything you don't want. Continue adding pieces.
Keep going until you have your desired block, which in this case was 6 inches.
Fuse onto a square of fabric. Fuse this onto batting. Fuse a backing piece on. She even used a fused raw-edged binding in one of the first two pictures to bind her art quilt. Kelly cut her binding with one of the fancy wavy rotary blades, and it was very cute. It was then machine quilted, and the pieces were permanently kept in place by the quilting process.
Some helpful tips:
1. Titanium needles gum up less than other needles
2. Batiks don't always fuse well. Test your fabrics.
3. Laura Wasilowski's books have many cute ideas for this technique, from arty to traditional.
4. This would be a great beginning project to get a child interested in quilting.
5. This would be a fun way to make greeting cards. Fuse to Cardstock.
6. Kelly used the floss holder box to organize her fused scraps in the picture below for future projects.
As you can see from the last post and this one, we had a really great meeting. Many people can't see the work that goes into putting on a demonstration or class like this. I just want to thank Kelly Kroon for putting a wonderful meeting together and this demonstration and also Lynn Butler for her demonstration on the hexagon stars.
Next post will be show and tell, so come back in a few days to see what the girls have been making. We had some wonderful projects shown this month.
Debbie
As an addendum, the following is a copy of a comment we received from Laura Wasilowski in the comment section below. Thank you Laura for additional tips to this very fun technique:
Hi Everyone!
Thanks for using my book, Fusing Fun, for a tutorial on fusing!
I have a few tips for you when using this book. Wonder Under #805 is the brand of fusible web I use. It will not gum up your needle when stitching. Remember, you always have to steam set the fused quilt top to the non-scrim side of batt before stitching first. Then the hand or machine needle will glide through like stitching in butter. (not that I've ever stitched butter, but you get the idea.)
Have fun!
Laura Wasilowski