A Happy Village

I spent the whole of Sunday in the very pleasant company of 19 other Cotton-On Quilters. We attended a workshop run by Dianne Southey who was teaching Karen Eckmeier's Happy Villages.

The villages are made of zig zag shapes inspired by the tetris game. You cut your pieces first from a limited number of fabric squares and then place them randomly, jutting up to each other (or overlapping) on a cotton batting square. Then you cut rooves, steps, doors, balustrades and windows etc and the village magically comes to life. All the pieces are glued on with tiny dots of glue instead of using vliesofix or wonderunder. To finish it, a piece of tulle is placed on top of the completed piece, backing underneath the batting and all the layers are pinned and then quilted. Mine needs a bit more quilting and I cut the tulle from the sky area after I had quilted around the outside edge of the village. It also needs binding.

I don't know if I'll do another village - too  many small fiddly pieces but I might use the glue instead of vliesofix sometimes. I'm not sure about the tulle over the finished piece either - it changes the colours too much but I am considering using it over an appliqued, raw edged background with uncovered motifs over the top of it.