Heavy Metal Fan

This one of my favorite things to do in my world of quilting.  Taking strips of fabric to make a new fabric.  Collage.  All of the pieces were pre-fused with Mistyfuse first. My plan was to make a background with the black and white fabrics.

I am playing around with the negative cuts from my Sizzix Big Shot (see Sizzix button in right column).  The fan blade die by Sizzix is about 10" long #658884 (Dresdan Plate), and one of the greatest joys of using their dies, is that there is hardy any waste.  The red portion that you see here, can be cut apart and put back together the opposite way to create yet another fan blade.

The art of play.  How will this look?  Not sure about this layout. It might be too busy, and I sort of have to laugh out loud over this statement, because I like busy! That phrase is seeping into my mind 'somewhere to rest your eyes.' Okay, I get it. You have to rest your eyes on the red, and it needs to be them main part of the quilt.  And then there is the element of the zipper trim.  I need to take that into consideration.  I have a bolt of zipper trim from Zipperstop in NYC.

To this.  Shows the fan blade in the same 'collage' technique I did with the black and white.  Are you resting your eyes on the red fan blades?  Those blades are divided by zipper trim, sewn on my BERNINA 750 QE, with a free motion foot.  This was made on a wool blended felt foundation.  National Nonwovens TOY002, and backed with the same.I had a super a-ha moment when I finally got to this point.  This is the look that I was going for. A traditional pattern, made a new way, with a new look!

Hmmm, maybe I should add the zipper pulls?  But, then I would have to use glue to secure them down.  I don't think so for this project

Free motion machine quilted.  My BERNINA was a champ, going through 3 layers of wool blended felt, the zipper trim and making sure that my needle never came in contact with the metal zipper trim.  I have to say in all of the years that I have been using zippers, I've only broken a couple of needles.  On this particular machine, you can program it to lift the presser foot for extra layers of fabric. Gotta love that!

I finished it off with sewing zipper trim all the way around the edges.  I attached a hanging sleeve, and a label.  See more techniques for using zippers on the We All Sew blog by Bernina. Heavy Metal Fan quilt  15W x 14H was made especially for BERNINA USA and will hang in their booth.  See it at Quilt Con in February!