6 essential tools for detailed art quilt appliques by Claire Haillot November 11, 2021 written by Claire Haillot November 11, 2021 319 In yesterday’s post, I showed you how to mark your HeatnBond Feather Lite Iron-On Adhesive and in today’s post I’ll show you how to get the interfacing onto your fabrics and create the wonderful Ariel quilt pattern designed by Lise Bélanger. Presenting the perfect tools for detailed art quilt appliques Since you’re now familiar with HeatnBond Feather Lite Iron-On Adhesive, I’ll present the other tools that really helped during the project. KAI 1000 Series Embroidery Scissors – 5½″ With a sharp point and straight blades, these scissors are great for cutting your fused fabrics as precision is important. But I have to admit that it’s the fatigue-free cutting that was the deal breaker for me! They have soft ergonomic handle grips and hardened stainless steel blades which offer superior cutting action. The trick is to always cut in the bottom half part of the scissors and keep the piece moving so you don’t lose momentum in the motion. If you cut using the tip of your scissors and without the continued motion, you won’t have a smooth edge. UNIQUE Sewing Twizzers – Straight Blades This helps me cut small details, but I mostly use it for when the piece is fused and I need to cut out specific areas once I am in the quilting stage of the project. The stainless steel straight blades always cut with precision. UNIQUE Sewing Bent Tweezers A must-have! I use it for handling all the small pieces that need to be cut when preparing the fabrics with interfacing. And then I use it once more to position the pieces under the cellophane. And that’s not all! I use them again when quilting my projects to grab my threads (I’ll show you on Friday…. Promise!) UNIQUE Quilting Wool Pressing Mat – 14″ x 14″ – Grey This is absolutely my new best friend! The pressing mat is made of premium quality New Zealand wool that is tightly felted and very thick (½’’), and as wool retains heat, it’s like your fabric gets ironed from both sides at the same time. I love it so much; I even got the bigger size, 18″ x 24″, and keep it at all times beside my sewing machine. UNIQUE QUILTING Double Sided Applique Pressing Sheet – Brown – 18″ x 18″ This is a double-sided pressing sheet that you need to use when bonding interfacing (fusible web, glue or any type of sticky stuff when crafting) with your iron. You place it in between your project and your iron to protect the surface of your iron. You’ll never have to clean a dirty iron again. The applique pressing sheet is easy to clean also! Just rub off the excess glue and you can continue with the next piece! OLISO PRO TG1600 Pro Plus Smart Iron And the final must have tools for this project is my OLISO Pro TG 1600 Smart iron. Although I must say that I also used my OLISO M2Pro Mini Project Iron when fusing sections of the mane onto the project. You can read my thoughts on both irons in one of my previous blog posts here. Pressing the interfacing onto the fabric and cutting on the marks The next step is to position your interfacing on the back of the fabric, ironing the paper for 2 seconds using a firm pressure in a circular motion. Then cut on your markings. What I found to be helpful after this is to place the pieces according to their numbers. I made groups of 10 pieces at a time to start positioning them onto the background. Using the magnifier to help you cut tiny pieces Remember how I introduced the UNIQUE Lighting Foldable LED Desk Lamp in Tuesday’s blog? This is just another example of how fantastic this tool really is. I managed to cut tiny pieces perfectly. Using the UNIQUE Bent Tweezers to position your fused fabrics Then comes the fun part of placing the pieces onto the background fabric. I used my UNIQUE Bent Tweezers to position the pieces with the help of the precious cellophane for precise positioning. For this project, I fused the pieces with my OLISO Pro iron every 10 pieces so that they wouldn’t move while I was moving on to the next section. The final layout of the Ariel art quilt pattern Now that the Ariel art quilt pattern is all pieced with the help of all my perfect tools for detailed appliques, come back tomorrow for the final step of the project: the quilting. This is part 4 of 5 in this series Go back to part 3: Marking your interfacing for art quilt appliques Go to part 5: Must-have tools to guide you through free motion quilting Print this page or save as a PDF 0qs389Ariel Art Quilt Patternart quiltart quilt tutorialcloverClover Water Soluble MarkerheatnbondHeatnBond Feather Lite Iron-On AdhesiveKAIKAI 1000 Series Embroidery ScissorsLise BelangernotionsolisoOliso M2Pro Mini Project IronOmnigripOmnigrip Rulersew easySEW EASY Colour & Tone Guide and Tonal EstimatoruniqueUNIQUE Lighting Foldable LED Desk LampUNIQUE Quilting Wool Pressing MatUNIQUE Sewing Twizzers FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinRedditWhatsappTelegramEmail Claire Haillot Claire Haillot shares her passion for quilting among her neighbors in the United States and Canada as well as her cousins in France. Claire has been active in the quilting industry since 2004. At first, she opened a quilt shop and started to teach, write how-to guides, and translate patterns and product information into French for American companies. In 2006, she started her own line of patterns and later began publishing patterns and articles in Canadian, European, and American magazines. You might have seen some of her work in Quilter’s World, Pratique du Patchwork or Canadian Quilter. She decided to close her brick & mortar quilt shop in 2016 to be able to concentrate more on teaching, writing, and creating. She collaborated with PlumEasy patterns to launch the Dancing Diamonds and Gem bag patterns. Claire has also won a few awards for her work: • Juror’s choice in Salon 2012 • Second Place in Vermont Quilt Festival of 2014 and 2016 • Second Place in Salon 2016 • Best of show at the Quilt Festival in Chicago and Houston 2018. previous post Marking your interfacing for art quilt appliques next post Must-have tools to guide you through free motion quilting YOU MAY ALSO LIKE... T-shirt quilts – 4 ideas for layouts that... Stay warm with a quilt made with Fairfield... Pinning a quilt – It’s the little things... T-shirt quilts – Quilting rulers that make the... Making a quilt starts with choosing the right... The trick to quilting for texture | Double... Create texture with thread painting and invisible thread... How to applique houses and landscapes with HeatnBond HeatnBond EZ Print Lite makes printing out applique... Leave a Comment Cancel Reply Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. 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