Here is a quick project to make for the Thanksgiving table, or in Australia, more usually the Christmas table. Yes we often have turkey for Christmas dinner.
This work is created mostly with Applique using quilting cottons - some bought and some from my stash, as well as some hand embroidery. The beak is made from Satin Stitch while the legs and feet are made from Chain Stitch.
The border is edged with wide bias tape and stitched on with Ladder Stitch which you will find in our Vintage Stitch Library.
The mat contains a layer of batting which sits between the cream from cotton fabric and the multicoloured backing fabric. It should accomodate a warm platter on a wooden table and cushion the platter when placed on the table.
You will need to consider scale when making up the project. You platter will probably be a different size to mine but there is scope for leeway here as the platter will mostly cover the motif underneath.
I have allowed for a drip line around the platter which extends beyond the lip of the dish. This allowance should enable the capture of food and liquid drips preventing them from dropping onto a tablecloth or directly onto the table itself. Make sure your fabrics are soak proof as this item will definitely require soaking to remove food stains occasionally.
The pattern pieces here show a mix of pieces, some seam allowance, and some with no seam allowance, and some with a bit of both. The seam allowances are slid underneath the fabric lying on top of it, in the tail and wing sections. This ensures that we are not trying to match up join lines perfectly in a single layer.
The raw edges in the body, neck and wattle are stitched with a Stem Stitch for stabilization. Then the Stem Stitch has been covered by a thin line of Satin Stitch around the whole piece. This is done before the pieces are cut out from the fabric.
The raw edges of the wing and tail are held in place with Blanket Stitch. I was concerned about the fabrics fraying without the firm edge which the Satin Stitch provides. If the wing and tail do fray a little, it will only add to the feather like look of those pieces.
The fabrics used were all cottons, some purchased for the Autumnal colours and some were already on hand. The Ombre fabric on the left was a real find. I could have taken 3 colours from this piece but used only 2. And the lines faintly marked on the fabric flow in the same direction as the feathers would.
The black cotton in between these 2 was a great contrast and sets off the colours wonderfully.
Using the tracing paper to align the pieces on the fabric worked out very well also. Having the full pattern drawn on tracing paper was very handy to on hand.
In the image on the right, you can see the threads matched the ombre and black fabrics closely. The thread for the neck and body was the same for both pieces and blended nicely with these fabrics.
The part which worked out the least well was the wattle. This turned out to be thicker than the pattern piece as my stitching was on the line and subsequent cutting out extended a little beyond the stitch line.
If you would like to keep the wattle finer, then consider stitching that whole piece with Satin Stitch instead of using fabric. That will allow for greater control over the shape of this section.
The wide cotton bias tape at 23 mm, was about double the width of the narrow tape available in my store. It is well worth while using the wider tape here.
You will note in the video that the laundry instruction for the tape indicate a "do not soak" . This is an item which will definitely need soaking to remove food and grease stains after use. I washed the tape in hot water with a soaker added and left it overnight.
No dye appeared to come from the tape, though different colours may behave differently. The added benefit of soaking was that the tape became much softer, easier to fold for ironing, and easier to pin around the edge of the mat.
I attached the tape with Ladder Stitch, first onto the backing fabric, and then separately attached the other side of the tape to the front cotton.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving!
Get the design for Terrence from our Resources page for free