We are going away on vacation next week. We are spending 3 weeks in the States, including 3 Shabbatot. The first one we are spending in a house in Orlando, the next one will be in Potomac, at a friend of my son’s and the third one will be at my cousin’s in Huntington, Long Island.<\/p>\n
We go to Hunting for a Shabbat practically every time we are in the US. I always bring a gift made in Israel. Instead of buying it this year, I decided to make it. (It’s still from Israel, right?)<\/p>\n
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After going to the workshop run by the Israel Quilt Association, I decided to try my hand at making something using some of the techniques that I learned.<\/p>\n
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I always like to bring different things every time that we go to the cousins, and I wanted to make something, so I figured a plata cover was the way to go. After talking it over with one of my daughters, we came up with a design that we liked and I sketched it out. The next step was going through my stash picking the fabrics. That is always a daunting task for me. Luckily my daughters were there to hold my hand and I think they came up with a great color scheme.<\/p>\n
I pieced the back of the plata cover in 4 sections, the same way that I did for the tulips that I made in the workshop. What I did was draw out the what I wanted on a very large piece of cardboard. \u00a0I started by measuring out 31″ x 26″, the site of a standard plata cover, and then drew on the background sections that I wanted. Then I cut it up and marked the fabric for each section on the wrong side of the fabric. When I cut, I added a quarter inch seam allowance.<\/p>\n
The background fabrics are layered one on top of the other, instead of just sewn together on the quarter inch seam. I chose which fabric that I wanted to be the top fabric, and I iron it down on the quarter inch. Then I top stitched with with invisible thread with a zigzag stitch. That kept it together nicely.<\/p>\n
I used heat bond fusible web to add the other parts on top of the background. I drew the tree trunk and pomegranates on the paper side of the web, and then I ironed it on to the back of the fabric. One thing to remember – you need a mirror image of what you want to show on the quilt, so take that into account when you draw.<\/p>\n
For the leaves, I just ironed the fusible web onto the fabric, and then cut out leaf shapes, without marking anything first. I like doing it like that because I think it give more of a natural look. It also take way less time then drawing every leaf and cutting them out on those lines. I was able to get all my leaves cut while watching a TV show.<\/p>\n
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The letters were a bit more tricky because I wanted them to be more perfect. (Not that they are perfect, but they are a bit more perfect than the leaves.) I printed the text the size that I liked on regular paper. It was dark and I could easily see through the paper, so I decided to iron a piece of web on the back of the fabric and then glue them on, using a glue stick, so they were backwards when I looked at them onto the paper side of the fusible web. I then, very carefully cut out the letters. To make sure that I didn’t lose any of them, I used binding clips for each word to make surer that everything was kept together.<\/p>\n
Next time I do lettering, I think I’m going to use a stencil and paint on the fabric, the way that I did with the tulips, instead of cutting each letter out from fabric. It’s a bit difficult to keep the integrity of the letters when they have a lot of points to them. The fabric frays a little bit, which can give it a nice effect, but it wasn’t originally what I was going for.<\/p>\n
After the background fabric was pieced, it was then time to play with the elements on the quilt. I started with fusing the tree trunk on to the background, and then I top stitched it on with a zigzag stitch, using the invisible thread again. I did the same thing for the large\u00a0pomegranates at the bottom of the plata cover.<\/p>\n
I then fused on a single layer of leaves. I added more layers, making sure never to have 2 unfused leaves over each other. The reason that I did it this way was because I wanted to make sure that each leaf got enough of its own heat to stick to the background fabric. I did not take this down with stitching – I left that for the quilting that I did later.<\/p>\n
I put the plata cover down on a place that I could iron on directly and very, very carefully place the letter down where I wanted them. (Actually it was where my daughter wanted them – she has a very good eye for that.) I then, very carefully, fused on the letter, holding my breath as I did it.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/quiltisrael.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/20170719_082555-225x300.jpg\")
A while back, while I was at Pissot, I saw polytherm fleece batting. It’s polyester batting that has a side that is nice and shiny. That’s the metallic side is a bit of insulation.<\/p>\n
With the metallic side facing down, I put my plata top on the batting and pinned. I decided not to put the backing on just yet. The main reason that I decided to do it that way was because I am still having issues with my sewing machine, and I didn’t think it would play nicely with the extra fabric. I had a hard enough time going through the layers that were there, so adding another one, where the stitches were exposed to the world, was really not an option.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/quiltisrael.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/20170719_082520-e1500999004691-300x225.jpg\")
The first thing that needed to be done was set all the fused but not top stitched pieces in place. The lettering came first, because I was more concerned about any shifting that might happen. With matching thread, I carefully sewed down each letter. This time I free motion quilted it. \u00a0I used a regular straight stitch instead of the zigzag. There were a lot of thin parts to the letters and I didn’t want the stitches to overwhelm them.<\/p>\n
Next were the leaves. I chose a bit darker thread for leaves than the actual green of the fabric so it would show up a bit more. I traced each leaf and put a center vein in them thread.<\/p>\n
Dealing with each of the different background areas came next. I didn’t want to quilt too much because I wanted the piecing to be the focal point. To make the orange look more like mountains, I put pebbles at the bottom of them and then put mountain paths in to give it more dimension. I marked those paths with chalk before I started quilting. I didn’t need to follow them exactly, but I wanted to get an general feel of how it would look before I started.<\/p>\n
In the water, I quilted a wave pattern. In the sky I quilting some cloud shapes. In the ground area, I quilted a grass design. And in the bark, I quilted a bark design.<\/p>\n
The two\u00a0pomegranates at the bottom got special detail. I used thread to make the white of the\u00a0pomegranate instead of using fabric and with read thread, used small pebbles to make the individual seeds.<\/p>\n
After the quilting was done, it was time to put on the backing of the quilt. For this, instead of using the standard quilter’s cotton, I bought flame resistant fabric. It only came in black, so black was the color I choose. I guess that’s a good thing – if it singes, it won’t show.<\/p>\n
Standard plata covers are 31″ x 26″, so I cut out a piece of fabric that was 32″ x 27″ inches, so that it would include a 1\/2″ seam allowance.<\/p>\n
I placed the back on to of the front, right sides facing each other, and sew around the plata cover, leaving about 6″ on one side so that I could pull out the top. To make the corners come to points, I snipped a bit of the fabric away from the corners. I then pulled the front through the hole that I left and worked the corners to points. To do this, you can use a chop stick.<\/p>\n
The last piece is to sew around the cover, as close to the edge as possible, sealing it all close.<\/p>\n
And then, voila! Plata cover finish. I am extremely please with how this came out. I’m going to have to go back to Pissot to get more of the polytherm fleece so that I can make some more. It was a lot of fun! I hope my cousins like it!<\/p>\n
Both of my daughters were instrumental in the design of this plata cover. I want to thank them so much for their help!<\/p>\n
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We are going away on vacation next week. We are spending 3 weeks in the States, including 3 Shabbatot. The first one we are spending in a house in Orlando, the next one will be in Potomac, at a friend of my son’s and the third one will be at my cousin’s in Huntington, Long … <\/p>\n