Applique . . . the Fast Way!

I finished quilting Jersey Rose today and even got it bound.  Want to see it?

I just did a simple meander in the background and outlined the "leaves" and rose "petals."  Sinta and Sherri will have the Schnibbles parade for Jersey Girl sometime today and you can see all of them if you click over to the two blogs--clicking on their names will take you there.   I mentioned to you the other day, though, that I hadn't hand appliqued the roses, and I thought this was a good time to show you my "secret."  Now and then, depending on what I'm appliqueing and how I'll later use the quilt, I'll prep my applique pieces as I would for hand applique by turning the raw edges under and using starch to hold the crease; I then lightly glue the pieces to the background with applique glue.  But then, instead of hand stitching them down, I'll stitch them on the machine while simultaneously doing the quilting.

Here, in the photo below, you can see I've quilted the outline of the leaves and now I'm doing the same for the rose . . . but I'm also actually stitching the rose down at the same time.  In this close up, you can see edges of the rose where it's not stitched down, right?

Another photo of my progress--I stitch very close to the edge, as you can see.

After I outlined the rose, I kept going around and around, stitching along some of the seams of the rose, although I didn't stitch every one; I just wanted to give a little definition to the shape and the suggestion that the petals go around and around.  You may be able to click into the first photo and see some of that detail.

So, where these large appliqued roses would have taken me a few hours to hand stitch--and then would have needed to be quilted anyway--I saved myself a lot of time by taking a little shortcut.  Simple, right?  I'm always looking for ways to streamline the process, just as long as it doesn't detract from the quality of the end product.

Happy stitching!