Illumination: The Making of a Reverse Applique Quilt

 As I was editing the pictures today, I realized that I don't have pictures of exactly EVERY step, but I think you all are smart enough, that you'll figure things out.  You can find my reveal post *here* which also includes the links from the other participants in Four-In-Art.

Reverse applique, instead of cutting out and applying a bunch of small individual pieces of fabric, you cut out one large piece of fabric and lay it over another piece of fabric and applique it down.  In this case I laid it over many smaller pieces of fabric.  You'll see.

First I found my image and printed it out.  Bigger than a standard 8.5" x 11" paper, so some cutting and piecing going on here.

Then using a light box I trace the image, IN REVERSE, onto the paper side of Wonder Under 805.  Next I fused the whole thing to a piece of black fabric.

TIP #1  I used a black batik fabric. Hoffman batiks, raven.  Why? Because a batik is more tightly woven and less prone to fraying when used for raw edge applique.

Now we are cutting out the pieces that I want to "show through" i.e. not be black.

 You want to use very sharp scissors for this.  Scissors that are sharp all the way to the point. I used my little stork Gingher brand scissors. 

 TIP #2.  Leave the large pieces that will be cut to the end.  This helps stabalize the whole piece while you are cutting out the little fussy pieces.

 TIP #3.  I actually debated about sharing this, but thought maybe there are people who would like to know.  To begin cutting inside of an area, I fold the fabric and make a cut across the fold.  Then begin the cutting from there. I do not cut on the line, or it won't be straight and I do not punch holes with the tips of my scissors.

 Above you can see the cut slit in the shape next to the moon.

 Once everything is cut out, you can start trying out the fabrics in the "windows".  I knew that I would be using the gold lame somewhere, ultimately I used it in the letter itself.

 Then I started rough cutting fabric shapes to fill up each window area, trimming to fit.  This was rather fiddly in smaller areas.

 Even though there was Wonder Under on the back, I couldn't stop and iron all the time, so I ended up using stick glue to hold the fabric pieces in place.

Once all the fabric was line up, trimmed and glued in place, I fused the whole thing together on top of a piece of fusible fleece.  You could probably use any fusible batting, that it what I happened to have immediately available.

 I used clear Poly in a zig-zag around the edges of the R, since they were much larger pieces.  The rest of the black was also the clear poly in random FMQ.  In hindsight, I probably could have quilted in black, but then the mistakes would be more apparent, too. 

And of course, the back.  A completely unrelated piece of fabric, but I do love using things I already have.  Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry to finish, I never even thought to put a sleeve or pockets in, and I definitely thing this one will get hung for a while.  This was one of the latest quilts for Four-In-Art that I ever finished, staying up very late to be done.  Really pretty happy with it.

Now to get all of them out, photographed, labeled and I'll write up a review post of these last five years.