Baby's first applique

Ok, so maybe I'm not a baby but somedays it feels like I am a baby in the quilting world. Anyway, I'm proud of myself for learning a new technique. The basic idea of applique is that you sew the design on top of the background fabric instead of piecing the top together. I was a little scared to start it but ended up really liking the process. It's pretty fast and not too hard once you get the hang of it. The most important thing is to cut your design out well since everything hinges on that.

So here's the quilt I did. It's king sized so I had to send it out to be quilted but it turned out very nice. This is the logo for a local comic book store. The owner's wife commissioned it for his birthday. Pretty cool, eh? You can get some very different shapes going with applique and do some neat stuff. I wanted to show you this close up of the face since it's not very visible on the other photo. It's built with layers and layers. For instance, the hair and outline of face is one big piece and then you put the white for the face on top and then put the features on top of that. For the mask, there are another 3 layers for the outline/eyebrows, the yellow mask and then the black eyes. There could theoretically have been another layer for the pupils but I used a fancy thing on my sewing machine to embroider them. 

Oh, forgot to mention this was my first real commission too! So I guess I'm open for business. Now, if only I could afford to do it full time instead of putting my pesky education to work.