I’m just about finished with my Morley J. Moose wall-hanging which was designed by Barbara J. Jones.  I bought the pattern last fall in St. Louis.  I just need to finish appliqueing a few things and then of course, quilt him.

So here’s how he was made:

First, I had to trace the back of the pattern which gives us the reverse for all the fusible backing pieces.

Then, I traced the pattern onto some lightweight stabilizer.  This stabilizer is where he is actually made.  All the little pieces of fabric are appliqued onto this stabilizer.

I traced and then cut out (in reverse) all the little pieces on a fusible web and ironed them onto different pieces of fabric.

I cut those pieces of fabric out and laid them onto my stabilizer Morley.  I didn’t stick them down until I was sure I liked the look.

* A note on the fusible web that I was using.  This stuff is called Appli-Kay Wonder.  I really wanted to love this stuff.  They sold it to me when I bought the pattern and it wasn’t cheap.  I thought it would be the miracle answer to my applique nightmares.  You iron it on one side, peel the paper off the other side and stick it down.  It’s re-positional until you iron the other side.  First off, I had to look up the directions because they weren’t included in the roll.  The online directions said use a medium setting on your iron but I had to crank it up to high to get things to stick and then I had problems after that of things coming unstuck.  The weight of it was about the same as other double stick fusible interfacing.  It didn’t leave a sticky mess on my needle which I liked.  Over all, it was just OK, not the miracle product I had hoped.

Anyway, so when I had things positioned and ironed down, I used a machine zig-zag stitch on all the seams.

Then I made the background – which I didn’t like.  I went back to the fabric store and bought similar colors but in more pastel hues.

I found a striped fabric and cut it in wavy strips.  I laid everything out on the new and improved background to see where to put everything.  Morley wasn’t sticky on the back so I had to pin.  The directions said to sew with several sheets of tissue paper on the back.  I understand that helps keep things from puckering but I could not juggle the moose and the tissue in my sewing machine.  I just went slowly and used a stitch on my machine that looks like hand applique.  Then I added the framing strips and trees.  Like I said, I’m not quite done yet but I think he’s cute.