nuffsaid

Dear fellow quilters, I will be making a large banner for my church that will be approximately 5' x 8' in size. There will be a *lot* of appliqué on it: a combination of celtic knot work, Hungarian flowers, celtic lettering and cross, and church symbols. There is movement within the design, of an ovoid type of spiral--Bible verse to flowers to a ship to a paschal lamb to a church symbol to, finally, a large celtic cross; and all these motifs will be connected by images reflecting either Hungarian embroidery or a very simple knot work line that is a reflection of the knot work that will form the border of this banner. My church is an international church in Budapest, Hungary--a joint church of both the Church of Scotland and the Reformed Church of Hungary. Because of the quantity of appliqué, I am thinking of first quilting the sandwich with a simple diagonal cross hatch, and then putting the appliqué on top of that. I don't think I should have any additional patterning made by the quilting of the sandwich. Some of the appliqué will be put on by hand, and some of it will be by machine. My question is, is this ok to first quilt and *then* put on the appliqué? Will this banner be stable enough to hang for many years? The top and backing will be muslin, with cotton kona solids for the appliqué. All the knot work will be appliquéd by machine, plus some of the larger motifs. I would really appreciate your thoughts and comments. I can't see the icon to post a picture of what I am thinking about. Carolyn

ckcowl

I think that would be a good way to go about it- the applique stitches will of course show on the back-over the quilting, but that shouldn't be a problem- who's going to pay much attention to the back? it should hold up very well with a good crosshatch pattern on the quilt- then the appliques attached- the hand work may be much more difficult to accomplish though- as for stability and durability it will work well.

QuiltnNan

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nuffsaid

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Here is the rough drawing of the banner I am thinking about doing. Carolyn Thank you, QuiltnNan!

PaperPrincess

Another thing to consider is how are you going to hang it? A sleeve the entire length of the quilt with a dowel will provide the most support. You can split the sleeve in one or more places for additional hooks/hangers to distribute the weight. If you go with tabs, use a lot of them.
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AliKat

I love your design and ideas. If you know where you want the cross to be on the banner, then use the center of the cross, and consider doing a sun ray type of quilting. Or do rays from the different elements as you choose. I think that would be more effective artistically.

You may or may not want to use invisible quilting/monofilament for quilting. That is a designer choice.

feline fanatic

My concern with appliqueing on to an already quilted base is when you wrote some of the applique will be done by machine. It will be very difficult to manipulate the quilted sandwich through the throat of a domestic sewing machine for the machine applique. Especially given the intricacy of many of your design elements.

AnnieSue

You can absolutely applique after you quilt it. Check out the book/website "Don't sew it until you quilt it".

mpspeedy2

Our church created a quilted hanging to celebrate our 250th anniversary several years ago. I was involved in most of the hand quilting. The finished quilt was at least 12' by 12'. Another quilter created a picture of the building with applique that we used for the center. It included the famous oak tree that overshadows the building as well a few of the tombstones in the old cemetery that is on two sides of the building. It was probably 4' by 3'. The rest of the quilt was made of pieced house blocks with each family's name embroidered under the house. The house blocks surrounded the center appliqued church block. There was at least a 6 inch border around the whole thing that had the church's motto embroidered on it. I did the majority of the hand quilting on the center block and probably a 1/4 of the quilting on the name blocks. I think I did most of the machine embroidery on the sashing etc. Luckily others were able to do the assembly as I would not have been able to handle the weight of that much fabric. It hangs in the room next to our sanctuary that we use for smaller services and our almost weekly coffee hour after services. From my seat in the choir loft I can see it when the dividing wall is open many Sunday mornings. I believe it was hung with the most heavy duty drapery rod and set up they could find. The sleeve was made by making the top extra long and sewing it to the backing so there was one less stitched seam to be stressed. It has been hanging there for at least 5 years without any problems that I am aware of.

nuffsaid

Thank you all for your help. I will buy the book, "No Sewing Until You Quilt It" by Ann Holmes. This method of appliqué looks very good, and very helpful for all the pieces I will need. Ann's quilts are quite beautiful and complex, and I think her method should work well. This will allow me to also use the "rays coming from the cross" that AliKat suggested, as I will need to use only what will be visible. The only downside that I can see in using this method is that one needs to draw the cartoon of the quilt ahead of time; and my drawing skills are not very good. So, thank you all. I hope that I will be able to show you the finished project in a few months. Carolyn WebRep


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