This is the gorgeous hand-dyed silk jacquard fabric chosen for the bell tower of my commission quilt. Silk has a wonderful glow. The jacquard weave also has patterned and glossy spaces across the surface that contrast nicely with the cotton background fabrics. Silk catches your eye. And is a perfect fabric for the long skinny legs of the bell tower.

Here’s a tip: always remove the release paper from fused fabric before cutting. If you leave the paper on the fabric and cut out a shape, you can fray the edges of the fabric shape when it’s time to take the paper off.

Here’s another tip: When cutting long skinny fabrics, cut them on the bias. A bias fabric doesn’t fray. Here you see the silk for the long skinny legs being cut on the bias. It is fused and the release paper removed. Non-fused edges of the fabric are trimmed off.

Then the silk is folded in half (glue side out) and placed on the cutting mat. It’s folded so the bias edges line up. A set of 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch strips are cut from that bias edge to make the skinny legs and other bell tower parts. Sure hope this works!

A small fabric sketch for the design.

And now back to our program…..The focal point for my Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine commission quilt is the campus landmark, a bell tower. In this fabric sketch of the design you see that the bell tower has really long skinny legs.

The idea of stitching between those skinny legs was more than I could handle. So the large sky background is machine quilted before adding the bell tower. (Allow me to pat myself on the back for thinking of that.)

Fusing 14 mm silk with Wonder Under #805.

Now it’s time to use my hand-dyed silk fabric to begin construction of the bell tower. First step: fuse the fabric with Wonder Under #805 fusible web. The fabric is a 14 mm jacquard silk, a heavier weight that works well with #805. Tomorrow I’ll show how to make skinny silky legs. Oh my!