Make it Modern- Appliqué Doily Quilt

Hi Makers! It’s Sara from @SaraBQuilts with my biggest appliqué project to date! I am so excited to share this quilt I made inspired by a popular doily pattern from the 1940s. The Spool Cotton Company published doily patterns 85 years ago that are still being used today! This quilt is based off of Pattern 7768-A, which was published in 1947 and entered the public domain in 1975. 

While I don’t usually work with solids, I love Riley Blake Designs Confetti Cottons™️ for appliqué projects. I have used many different manufacturer’s solids, and Confetti Cottons™️ stand out to me because they are easy to smooth out over template curves, they peel off of my templates without fraying much, and they iron out beautifully! The weave of the fabric is not too tight that it is hard to manipulate, but also not too loose that it just falls apart during the appliqué process. I highly recommend trying out Confetti Cottons™️ for your next appliqué project. 

For my quilt, I used the Riley Navy and Periwinkle Confetti Cottons™️ and I love how they complement each other! I wanted the background to be something the viewer had to think about- is it the dark navy or the light blue that the doily evolves out of? Periwinkle may be my favorite Riley Blake color, so I wanted to use as much of it as I could. 

To make the pineapple doily it took 636 appliqué templates! I cut them all out of card stock and prepared each fabric piece on them using my glue, starch, and iron method. After each piece was prepared, I used a light box so that I could see my master pattern under the fabric. I glued the pieces in place, ironed them to set the glue, and then I was ready to hand sew.

Hand sewing took a very long time. In order to finish this quilt top in 3 months, I sewed 7 pieces a night no matter what was going on that day! It kept me accountable and it kept this project moving forward. Once all of the pieces were sewn on, I used monopoly thread to quilt diagonal lines. 

For the backing I used Riley Blake Designs Coordinating Basics, Gray Dainty Daisy. It is both subtle and interesting to look at! The binding was made using the Cement Confetti Cotton solid. 

I absolutely love how this quilt turned out and am proud of what it means to me. I hope you try out Confetti Cottons™️ for your next appliqué project!

Happy Sewing!

Sara (@SaraBQuilts)