Stitching Down the Buildings

The continuing saga of "A Slice of the OC"... When last we met, our project had a background, many buildings, shading and trims. But they were all just laying there, ready to fly away with the wind. Well, we better get them stitched down before that happens.

I like to use my stitching down of the buildings as my quilting stitching as often as I can. It saves so much time! To prevent my buildings from shifting in location,  I used pins, small bits of fusible and fabric glue to keep the buildings in their proper place during this process.  I created my sandwich of my top, batting and backing, and then pinned the three layers in place. Once I had my sandwich I went to the machine.

I used a straight stitch on most of the buildings and just stitched about 1/16" from the edge of the fabric around the buildings. This is raw edge applique, so I didn't want to get closer than that to minimize fraying. On the yellow buildings I couched blue yarn around the edge using a zig zag stitch. For the Ferris wheel I stitched rick rack around the perimeter and used that stitching to secure the wheel. I also stitched the building edge lines using a straight stitch. 

And here are the stitched down buildings!