The black outlines

Sandy asked about the "black" outlines that I use in my quilt designs. I am glad to explain why and how they are there.

I thought for a long time about how to create dark outlines in fabric, that had the qualities of a hand-drawn line. What I mean is a natural line with slight wavers and variations in thickness. You can stitch a satin stitch around the shapes, but a satin stitch is quite uniform in width and has a mechanical quality that wasn't what I wanted. I came up with the idea of cutting the shapes from fabric and fusing them to a dark background fabric. Sometimes that is a black fabric, sometimes another dark color. I like dark blue which has a less harsh look than black, and that is what I am using for the piece I am currently working on.

For fusing I use a liquid called Liquid Thread.

I like it better than fusible web because I can fuse only the edges of the fabrics, and the piece stays soft. It also seals the cut edges and prevents raveling better than fusible web. I do find it too thick and hard to control as it comes out of the bottle, so I dilute it with a little water and put it into a smaller bottle with a small tip.

Here I am running a narrow bead of Liquid Thread around the edge of a piece I will fuse to the larger piece of navy blue fabric.

Here I have fused the three pieces of a building shape to the navy background piece, leaving a narrow line of the dark fabric showing between the pieces. After fusing, I use a very narrow zigzag stitch around each fused shape. It is barely perceptible when a matching thread is used.

Then I flip the piece over and run a bead of the fusible around the outside edge of the zigzag stitching.

Then I lay the piece, fusing side down, on a teflon ironing sheet and press until the fusing liquid melts and adheres to the ironing sheet. I let it cool for a few minutes then carefully peel it off the ironing sheet. The fusible liquid has melted onto the fabric, sealing the threads of the fabric and making a shiny line.

Then I trim the excess dark fabric away, leaving a narrow outline around the building shape.

Now I have a shape to add to my composition, with its dark blue outline and fusible along the edges on the back side, which can be activated with an iron when I am ready to attach it to the rest of the composition.