I’m happy to report that my slice quilt is coming along beautifully. I’ve got the top layered. There are so many little pieces that I didn’t want to take the time to back each one individually with fusible web. After all, I’m up against a deadline! And why I seem to work so much better under pressure is a whole different blog post.

So, how to keep all those little pieces in place while I stitched them down? Pinning like crazy didn’t seem the best answer, so here’s what I did. First, I numbered my pieces in the order I was going to layer them, starting with the background. Second, since I had traced the pattern onto a muslin foundation, I decided to take a large piece of TransWeb fusible web–it comes on a bolt–and fuse it over the muslin. TransWeb is lightweight, and I could easily see my drawn lines underneath. After removing the protective paper from the fusible, I proceeded to carefully put my backgound pieces into place, and subsequent details over that. Once everything was in place and to my liking, I carefully moved it to my ironing board and fused everything down.  For the very top layers that would not touch the fusible underneath, I used a bit of fabric glue to temporarily hold them until I could get them stitched. I don’t know if this idea is original–probably not– but I can tell you I felt pretty clever when it worked.

Here’s the top taped up on my wall, next to the inspiration photo (right).

Now it’s time to get the top, batting and backing layered and start quilting. I’m going to stitch down all the pieces and quilt at the same time. Again, just trying to save some time.

A closer shot of the unfinished top.

Finally, we decided that a traditional binding would be distracting to the finished look, so this will be faced instead. That’s another technique I’m new at, but fortunately for me, Irene wrote out excellent instructions and I’m confident it will come together smoothly. Wish me luck!