Reverse Applique Version 2 - Rob Appell

I've already written about Reverse Applique a while back - I took a great class from The Singing Quilter Cathy Miller based on the Panamanian Mola. Cathy calls it Mock Mola. 

Come to find out, Cathy is not the only quilter teaching Reverse Applique. Rob Appell, of Man Sewing, visited the Kaw Valley Quilters Guild and did a fantastic workshop on a Reverse Applique workshop. Imagine! Two great Reverse Applique teachers!

There are a few differences in the techniques offered by the two teachers. Cathy had us draw the design on Golden Threads quilting paper. Then we sewed through the paper onto the back side of fabric. Rob had us draw the design on the front of the fabric with a chalk or washable marking pen.

Cathy asked us to pay close attention to the grain of the fabric and make sure to use a zigzag stitch on the seams that were in danger of raveling. Rob just had us sew the entire design with a free motion technique (straight stitch).

As I described in my previous post, I took inspiration from the Panamanian traditional Mola for Cathy's Mock Mola class.  For this design I followed Mola inspiration and added in multiple colors.






For Rob's class I wanted to do a peacock and use Kaffe Fassett fabric. I'm not much of a sketch artist, so I relied on free clip art drawings from the internet. Stencil designs work well. I nipped over to Kinkos and had my 8.5x11 inch peacock blown up to 24x36 inches - a great size for a wall hanging. I used tracing paper to transfer the design to the fabric - my main fabric is black, so I couldn't use a lightbox.

I used a turqoise blue millifiori by Kaffe Fassett sandwiched with batting in between two layers of black batik. I like the look so far. 



I'll do an update when I've finished. 

Curious about Reverse Applique?
Check out Rob and Cathy.