Retro Car applique in a few steps

I dream about a quilt with retro cars for a while. Maybe a bed quilt, maybe a wall quilt. I have not yet decided which one to make.

I love also appliqué.
I started a few projects having raw edge appliqué as main quilting technique in order to practice the ways of securing the edges of the appliqued pieces.
Today I share one of them combined with a little thread painting.

I drew an old BMW because is my favorite car brand.
In order to give it some texture and 3D look, I outlined the possible shining and shadowed areas of the car in a few little areas of color shades.
I made a template and printed it.

I transferred the design onto the background fabric.
I traced the design of the pieces onto the paper side of the fusible web and fused them on the wrong side of the fabric pieces.

After cutting them out and peeling-off the fusible web, I put each piece in place.

I checked that all the pieces are in place and I carefully pressed them.

Normally, next I would have added the batting and backing to make the quilt but this time I wanted to see how it will look using tear-away stabilizer.

I sat at the sewing machine assuming the needle was a pencil in my hand. I intended to cover two tasks: outlining the car shape and fading the edges of the fabric pieces to make them shade imperceptibly into each other acting like illuminated and shaded areas.

The result was this. For a first time, I think it looks pretty good.

Next time I will add batting to make a quilt. I will think also if there are some areas or edges to secure before quilting.
We will see.


If you are in a mood for a quick and nice applique project, maybe you would like to try this one.

Until next time,
Have a beautiful day, my dears!

Linking to Finish it up Friday!