So far, in this series on embellishing quilts, we have considered the use of decorative stitching as well as ribbon and braid.  I debated the best title to describe the category of embellishment this week, and settled on fabric manipulation.  We can enhance our quilts by changing the way a fabric looks or behaves.  While I haven’t done this extensively, I can offer a few quilts by way of example.

I discovered this fabric manipulation technique in a magazine article, presented as an alternative to curved piecing.  Squares of fabric are folded diagonally into triangles, then stitched into the patchwork along the raw edges such that the folded edge remains unattached.  This edge is then pulled back into a curve and stitched in place.

Prairie points are one of the more common uses of folded fabric.  Often used to embellish the outside edges of a quilt, they can also be inserted within patchwork.  I added prairie points to the outside edges of this little race car quilt.

In this example, the background fabric has been pleated and the prairie points tucked randomly between the pleats.

As an appliqué enthusiast, I should have all kinds of examples of ruched flowers and that sort of thing.  But the best that I can come up with is this gathered circle of fabric – also known as a yo-yo – fixed to the center of a flower block with a button.

This block is also an example of three-dimensional appliqué.  The leaves and the flower are lined and only tacked in place onto the background.  I have used this technique a couple different ways.  In the wreath below, the holly leaves were formed by sewing two layers of fabric right sides together, slitting the back, and turning them right sides out.  Veins were stitched with gold metallic thread before the leaves were tacked to the quilt.

In this next example, the grapes and grape leaves were formed by sandwiching a layer of fusible adhesive between two layers of fabric.  The beauty of this approach is that the patches can be molded into three-dimensional shapes while the fusible adhesive is still warm.

Snippets are tiny pieces of fabric that can be arranged into a design, like a mosaic, or used to create a new fabric surface.  Here is the same grapevine wreath formed with snippets.

This butterfly is also created with snippets of fabric.

A layer of tulle was added to the butterfly to hold the tiny snippets in place.  Tulle is a great tool for trapping all kinds of interesting fibers and embellishments.  Here I’ve used it with snippets and threads to create an interesting surface design.

I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface on this subject because there are so many more ways that fabric can be manipulated.  If you have any good examples, send me a photo or post it on my Facebook page!