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Beyond Hawaiian Florals
12 All-Around Easy Appliqué Designs

Author: Stacy Michell & Toshiko Hashimoto
Pages: 32
Page size: 8 1/2" x 11 1/2"
Publisher: American School of Needlework
Cover: Soft
Item Code: 4FF0143
Weight: .6 lb

20% off: $8.75
MSRP: $10.95

Introduction

This book includes 12 Hawaiian-Style appliqué designs with instructions to use them in a few projects. The goal is to teach you some great machine-applique techniques.

What makes a Hawaiian quilt unique is how the appliqué motifs are created using folded-and-layered cutting techniques, similar to the method used to cut a paper snowflake. After cutting, the shape is opened and centered on a background square. Hawaiian-applique quilts were and still are hand-appliqued, but the samples in this book were all applied by machine.

About the Authors

After visiting several large quilt shows, Stacy Michell was inspired to explore the availability of hand-dyed textiles in the quilting marketplace. In 1986, she started her business venture called Shades Textiles.

Stacy was uniquely qualified for the job of a textile artist. She began sewing as a child at the age of 4. Her first sewing machine was a Christmas gift when she was 6—a Singer Featherweight. She made her first quilt as a 10-year-old fourth-grader and taught a six-week quilting class at her school the next year.

According to her mother, she was an avid finger-painting artist, enjoying just the touch and feel of the paint and the swirls of colors as they mixed together on the paper. This is much like how the dyes mix on the fabrics Stacy produces today. Stacy's parents are also in the quilting business. This family profession assisted in qualifying her for the textiles business she operates today.

Within the first couple of years in business, Stacy started exhibiting at as many as 18 quilt shows a year. These ranged in size from smaller local events to large venues such as The American Quilter's Society Quilt Show in Paducah and the International Quilt Market and Festival in Houston.

While at the Houston show the year, Stacy met Akio Kawamoto, a designer and shopowner from Japan. That relationship led her to enter the export marketplace. Today much of her fabric is sold in Japan, and there are several very large private collections of her hand-dyed fabric there. Japanese quilt artist Kathy Nakajima has featured Stacy's fabrics in many of her quilting books.

In recent years, Stacy's international exposure has developed a synergistic effect on her career. Many of her Japanese customers started making Hawaiian-style quilts using her colorful hand-dyed fabric. These fabric choices broke the old design rule of Hawaiian quilts being made with just two solid colors.

The artistic movement inspired Stacy and her associate Toshiko Hashimoto to create a large collection of appliqué designs inspired by Hawaiian quilts but using anything but Hawaiian themes.

Currently, Stacy lives in Marietta, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. Shades Textiles occupies a 3,600 square-foot space. Her studio is part of a large complex of artists that occupy an old furniture factory. When Stacy moved to this space, it was an empty hole, lacking the plumbing or wiring required for fabric dyeing. After more than 10 years in the space, it is fully equipped, functional, colorful and comfortable. With a staff of five people and one dog, her studio is a fun place to be.

Instruction Page

Design Examples

Design Examples

Design Examples

Design Examples

Islander Flip-flops

Iron-on Appliqué Thread Patches