At Long Last, with a Little Help from my Bernina 770QE

I started my gull quilt, Dinner for Four, over two years ago, but lots of life got in the way.  My father got sick and died, my husband and I took a two month road trip, later we went to France for two months.  The half-finished gulls were left pinned to the wall for ages.  I bought a new sewing machine, a Bernina 770 QE In January, and that refueled my motivation.  I'll write more about my machine later.  

The quilt still isn't finished...it needs to be quilted and bound, but today I stitched the last waves to the watery background.  Whew.

I plan to embellish around the fronts of the birds with cheese cloth to make the water splash like I did on my whale quilt.

The birds. Are raw-edge pieces glued with glue stick to a heavily starched muslin backing.

  The water is turned edge strips of black and gray fabrics that will be enhanced with various threads when I quilt the piece.  I,m thinking of working metalic threads in for a watery sparkle...not sure of that yet though.  The background is not glued or stitched to a backing fabric as I find that makes it harder to keep everything flat when I quilt it.  I used a turned edge applique process for that.

 My technique for turned edge applique is to glue each piece to the next along the quarter-inch seam line before stitching the seams with a blind hem stitch.  I use washable, bottled school glue for this .  Below a section of the water is being constructed.  The pattern is drawn on freezer paper.  I cut the pattern piece out, iron it to the right side of the fabric, then cut the fabric roughly a quarter inch from the paper.  The edges that will be on top are turned, those that tuck under are left raw edged.  I dampen the edge I am turning with sprach starch by painting the spray starch on with a foam beush.  (Spray the starch into a cup to get enough to paint on the fabric.

This shows the back of the fabric being "painted" with spray starch.  The freezer paper side is face down.  After wetting the fabric with the starch, i pull the fabric to the back along the edge of the freezer paper, and iron it down.  No reversing of the pattern is needed this way, and the pattern piece can be put back in the space it came out of, and fit perfectly.

At least it can be put back and fit perfectly, IN THEORY.   Well, back at it, and hopefully I'll finish this piece before I am shuffled off to the Shady Rest.