Precious - An altered Laura Heine design

Robin who owns the local Log Cabin Quilting Quilt Shop made this amazing quilt from a Laura Heine class she had taken.  Robin took Laura's "The Dress" pattern and altered it into a beautiful ballerina to make it all her own. When I brought it home, she had it rolled onto a pool noodle so it wouldn't get creased or lose any parts.

The quilt is made via raw-edged applique over a thin layer of interfacing that has the outline of the girl design on it. The flowers shown above are all fussy-cut and ironed onto a piece of background fabric.

I started off by quilting the gray background areas with my gray thread. I outlined each fabric piece, about 1/8th of an inch from the edge, and then backfilled using a different design in each fabric print.

I quilted the big ruffles in the skirt the same way in a cream thread in the lighter pieces, and pink in the darker ones.

I outlined her arms and bodice as well, but left her arms and face un-quilted to keep her youthful skin smooth. :)

She needed a little bit of quilting in the chest area, and after much deliberation, decided on adding a collar bone detail. It was either that or giver her cleavage! lol! umm, no. I didn't want to do that at all.

Quilting in the skirt ruffles and large pieces was no problem at all. It was those darn fussy-cut flowers that gave me all the trouble.

This is one quilt that will probably never get washed even though I outlined each and every piece, aside for the hundreds of flowers. It's strictly a hanger-upper and for display only.

Fancy-fancy!

The headdress was by far the most challenging part. I was quilting through at least 3 or 4 layers of fabric ironed into place with fusible web. Plus the interfacing, batting and backing fabric. It gummed up my needle pretty bad and shredded my thread and even made my needle snag up. I had to replace my needle a couple of times. 

The face made me nervous as well. I gave her a nose, eyelashes, and some extra tendrils in her hair with some thread play.

Overall, Precious was a fun but challenging project! Robin was very pleased with her and you can currently see her hanging up in her quilt shop Log Cabin Quilting in Elk Horn, Iowa.

Thanks Robin!