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Sunday, March 8, 2009

Shadow Quilting



On my trip I learned a new technique called Shadow Quilting. I had never heard of it before, but I found the technique very interesting.



  1. Take a line drawing of your design.
  2. Trace the 'parts' of your line drawing onto the dull side of a piece of wax paper and cut out the pieces.
  3. Iron the pieces of wax paper onto the fabric of your choice, shiny side down.
  4. Cut out all of the pieces of your design and arrange them onto your background fabric.
  5. You should have a full sandwich of the backing, batting, background and design pieces.


    So far so good, nothing surprising.

  6. Then, you place a piece of shadow fabric over the entire design.
  7. Here is where you have some choices to make. You can take the color coordinated threads and hand quilt an outline of the design pieces. That's it, leave the background un-quilted. Just bind and done. That's how most of the samples I saw were finished; not my choice.


    Of course, I deviated I thought it was just a little dull for my taste. So...
  8. I machine quilted the background and outlined my design in corresponding colored thread.


It's not my best work, but it was fun to learn a new technique. In the end though, I really didn't deviate all that much did I?

10 comments:

Gina said...

Great wallhanging. There's noo rule that says you can't quilt the background

Love and hugs Gina xxx

Niena said...

This the first time I heard about shadow quilting. I will definately try to do it. Nice work.

audreypawdrey said...

I like that you quilted the background. This is a neat technique that I was not familiar with, thanks for sharing it! Is the shadow fabric a specific type of fabric or just a sheer or lightweight cotton?

Laural said...

Rules Schmules! The closest I've seen to this technique is when quilters just throw scraps of fabric down under a thin layer of tulle and they stitch the heck out of it adding additional layers of scraps/tulle as they see necessary.

Micki said...

I love the technique and will try it for sure.Thanks for a great tutorial!
Micki

Clare Wassermann said...

I like the step by step photos. Do people sometimes go on to cut out the top layer from over the design or am i mixing that up with reverse applique?

Eileen said...

This is so interesting.. I have not heard of it before either. What kind of fabric is that on the top? It is really pretty. You were smart to quilt the entire border.. that was the right thing to do!

YankeeQuilter said...

Laurene Sinema's book, Applique! Appliuqe!! Applique!!! The complete guide to hand Applique is a great resource for applique techniques. In the book she has a heart done in 9 different techniques including: Mola, Celtic, Running Stitch, Broderie Perse, Shadow, Hawaiian, Button Hole Stitch, Pa andu, and Stained Glass. They are only about 6 inches each so you get to try a new technique without a lot of commitment.

Dionne said...

Hi Clare,
I couldn't answer your question by email, because you are listed as no reply so I hope you get this.
Actually the top layer always stays in place on this technique. It was a really interesting technique to learn because I'd never really seen it before. It gives your design a look of being seen through the shadows and highlights your quilting. Which I was supposed to do by hand... but didn't.
Cheers,
Dionne

Anonymous said...

very interesting...what type of sheer fabric did you use? Would you make a whole quilt out of this, or just a wall hanging?