Quilted Faces - How I start them

The fun faces that I make and quilt are not terribly hard to do, although they take  a lot of time. A Left Handed Quilter asked why I don't show the process. I jokingly said "I can't give away all my secrets."  Of course the fact is that once I get "in the zone" - I forget photos.   HOWEVER,  today I made a "plan" and decided to post the basic process. This is fusible applique. 

I start with hand-dyed fabrics -or- batiks. Both are great for fusible applique.  The reason is that there they are generally a higher thread count (less fraying) and the color goes all the way through the fabric. Thus there is never a "white outline" from the base fabric as there is often with a print. 

I start by fusing some fabrics.  Okay, to be honest I have a bin of pre-fused fabric ready to play.  But for this tutorial, I grabbed some pretty hand dyed fabrics and fused them. (You can never have too many "crayons" in the box, can you?)  

I am not showing the fusing process as it is different for various brands of fusible. Today, I used MistyFuse, but I also have Wonder-Under and Steam-a-Seam 2.   The MistyFuse is thinnest and thus easier to quilt through.  You can layer the Wonder-Under almost as well, but the Steam-A-Seam is a bit thicker and more than two layers is difficult to quilt through.  I never know how many layers I will have for these.  

So I fused these fabrics:

When the MistyFuse is properly attached it gets a nice shine as you can see in the picture below.

You can actually see the web of glue in this photo. But I assure you it is just the shine.

This is well fused in place. 

I also have this bin of pre-fused fabrics

You will notice that there are some odd pieces cut out and some small pieces that 

many people would have discarded. But continue on and see why I keep them. 

As a work place, I use a silicone sheet - I think this one was sold as an oven liner.

There are many on the market.  The MistyFuse Goddess sheet leaves a nice wavy

design in the fusible on the back of the fabric. Yes, I would like one of those, but, 

I already have this one, so I spend the money on other supplies. 

Also in the photo is a piece of silicone release paper from the back of some wonder-under. 

That is an acceptable surface also.  And you see my Clover mini-iron, which is handy for

this when I am not working at the ironing board. And yes, sometimes I do this at the

ironing board also. 

Now comes the fun part: Cutting the pieces.  For this one I am doing an "alien head." 

So I decided to cut the shape using my Tri-Recs ruler but stretching it out by moving the ruler 

after the first edge was cut. (Hint - think outside the box and make the most of your tools!)

I layered two fabrics because I like the two color faces. 

There was an overlap so that I could trim a curved edge. 

I trimmed off some of the brown -which will be on bottom- to have less layered. 

Then I cut the curvy line on the edge of the blue. 

Next I lightly fused these together.  This is a temporary heat fuse. You only press the iron until

the glue melts enough to hold it in place.

I have two pair of scissors that I use for cutting the features.  One is from Famoré Cutlery, 

the other are Karen K. Buckley 4" perfect shears.  I prefer the Famore ones for general use.

I also keep some pre-fused white (ish) batik for eyes. The trick is to fold the piece of 

pre-fused fabric right sides together and cut both eyes at once if you want them to match. 

Here are those eyes placed on the face. 

For a human face you would place the eyes roughly halfway

down the face, for an alien, you have more options. 

I want you to see that the eyes are only tacked in place, so I could pull them up and move

them if I wanted to do so.  This allows for creative options

Next the nose is added.  Notice the small scrap of light blue fabric.

Had I thrown that small scrap in the garbage, I would have 

needed to cut into an extra piece of fabric. As it is, 

I have the larger piece of this saved for another project!

In this one I have added a mouth with the tongue sticking out, just for fun. 

The mouth was also cut from some very small scraps that I had kept. 

I will add "hair" and a neck and some other features before he is finished. 

Do you think you could do this?  I think you could. 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.