Making 3D quilted items

I love quilts with a bit of 3d added to them, like a prairie point or raised applique but it did not occur to me to make 3d quilted items.

Gillian Travis gave our branch of the IPS (Irish Patchwork Society) a workshop on how to make her prize winning 3D flowers made from quilted pieces. You may have seen these at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham a number of years back.

Gillian has a new kit for sale and these will be the last of them. She is moving onto applique kits of Indian ladies and other fun stuff.

Included in the kit is fabric and felt to make the quilt sandwich, wire to hold the shape, buttons for the centre and a template sheet for 5 different designs.

We each used a kit on the day and it came with beautiful hand printed fabric. There were 2 options of kits, with orange and without and I couldn’t resist the gorgeous brightness of the kits with the orange included.

The fabrics are hand printed in India and when travelling there on holiday Gillian visited the workshop, made friends and worked out the basic pieces of a kit. Gillian was keen to make sure the sourcing was ethical and of a high quality.

The kits we were using are the 3rd edition and I just love the paper the wire came wrapped in. Don’t these Bollywood movies look like lots of fun?

I’m quite proud of my one flower made on the day!

There is a bit of a learning curve with this one, involving using free motion quilting, zipper foot, different types of zig-zag stitch and Gillian gave us lots of tips on the day. It was slow going and we all pretty much made 1 flower.


Now that we’ve gotten the hang of it I expect the next few would be much quicker.


Doesn't everyone's work all look so pretty together? Thank you Gillian and all the IPS peeps for such a lovely day!


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