When I first began crazy quilting, I found the more I learned, the more I found new and different products I could combine in my creative outlet. One of these products is lace appliques available in various shapes and sizes. While some are cotton, many are rayon which absorbs dyes beautifully, allowing vast colour options to add to your quilting.
How we incorporated rayon lace applique in this project
The basket in the center of the photo above is an example of a dyed rayon lace applique. I’ll talk about sources for lace appliques below. I stitched the basket in place with a delicate beading thread. I used silk ribbon for the leaves, cheater roses, French knots, and a ribbon rose. I played around with the placement of the larger flowers, then added leaves, some of which are tucked behind the flowers.
My Dark Dusty crazy quilt was stitched several years ago following a workshop with Judith Baker Montano. The fabrics are a mixture of medium to dark values of silks, satins, velvets and brocades. I prefer this mix when choosing materials, although I now use velvet minimally as it can be somewhat challenging to stitch on.
Once the basket was complete, I added seam treatments to the surrounding areas. My Dark Dusty CQ was machine quilted, and this area highlights some of the lovely machine quilting designs Tess used. Thank you, Tess!
Many sewing stores have lace applique, but I recommend Raviolee Dreams for hand-dyed lace applique and trims. Nikki has a great selection of products, including mixed bags of appliques. These are wonderful if you are new to CQ.
While my focus today is on lace appliques, many lace trims can be used in your quilting or wool applique. We will delve into lace trims in future posts.
