Snowman - From RedWork to Applique

I love to think outside the box. Most of my quilts are done in color combinations other than what the designer used. I tend to take liberties with a design. One thing I've been contemplating for awhile but haven't had time to experiment with is taking a Redwork design and turning it into an applique design.

The project I chose to experiment with is the snowman from the Bird Brain Designs pattern Winter Partners.

I chose this one because the design is large and seemed like an easy one to adapt to applique. Here is the drawing of the snowman.

Remember if you want to do something like this and you want it to look like the original design you need to REVERSE the image. In other words trace from the wrong side of the drawing, Here's the pattern taped to my studio window (on a rainy Southern CA day) so I can trace on the wrong side.

I traced the images onto fusible web.

I then fused them to the wrong side of my snowman fabrics.

One of my "Must Haves" is an Applique Pressing Sheet. 

Here is the snowman drawing with the pressing sheet over the top of it. I know it is a little hard to see but if you look closely you'll see the snowman design. I use the Lightbox App on my phone but needed my phone to take the picture. So when I'm working with it, the lines will show up better. 

I'm going to fuse the entire design onto the pressing sheet. It will be one solid piece that I will then transfer onto the background fabric. Here's the snowman transformed into fabric.

I chose a dark navy blue as my background. I finger pressed it in both directions to find the center of the fabric.

Then I found the center of the snowman design. I positioned it onto the background matching both centers (the snowman and the background). Then I fused the snowman in place.

He's a little crooked.  Guess I didn't get find the exact center of the snowman. It's such a whimsical design that it just adds a little more whimsy. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it - lol.

I realized after I got everything fused down that I should have traced the eyebrows and smile when I had the fabric on the pressing sheet. I placed the pattern on top of the design and used my Point Turner to trace an indentation onto the fabric. Then I followed that with a Black Micron Pigma Pen.

I squared up the block and now it is time to add the borders. Check back soon to see how I finish it. 

Happy Stitching and Quilting,

Carol