One of my Quilting… You Say? QAL friends — let’s call her Nancy — is working through the QAL right now. In the QAL, we stress personalizing the quilt — pick fabric colors you like, pick threads that thrill you, pick stitches that seem right to you, and for the three block spaces — customize them too! So, when it came time for her item session, Nancy didn’t want to make Sunbonnet Sue — she wanted her longarm.
Original Image
I don’t blame her. Her machine has a name — “The Beast” — and after spending that much time together, of course she wanted it immortalized in fabric.
Of course, I volunteered — though I wasn’t completely sure how I was going to pull it off. I’ve traced images in EQ8 before, but that takes a bit of time. I’m not very good in Illustrator, though I might have been able to trace it in Inkscape. But I’ve been getting really good at using Canva lately, so this was going to be one more experiment with Canva for quilting.
First Iteration
I started a chat in Canva AI and loaded Nancy’s photo, with a simple first request: “I want to turn this image into a black and white vector drawing that I can use for a quilt appliqué.”
A quick note: image generation in Canva AI works on the free plan, but with a much smaller monthly allowance — and free-tier AI images don’t come with commercial usage rights. Since I went through a few rounds of back-and-forth to get this right, Canva Pro (which I already use) made this a lot easier than it would’ve been on the free tier.
First Canva Iteration
I was honestly surprised at how well it rendered the image! It was a great start — but too detailed for fusible appliqué, which needs clean, simple shapes rather than fine linework. So, I asked it to simplify.
Second Iteration
Better — but I still couldn’t picture this making a good 8″ block. There was still too much detail. So, I asked for one more round of simplification.
2nd Canva Iteration
Third Iteration
This was getting closer. It might work for embroidery, or for a larger fusible piece — but it was still too much detail for the small scale we needed.
3rd Canva Iteration
Fourth Iteration
Appliqué has real construction limits that a vector image doesn’t know about, so for the final pass, I got specific:
“Simplify this one more step for fusible fabric appliqué. Keep the recognizable silhouette of the longarm quilting machine and frame. Use larger, clean shapes with minimal interior details and no tiny pieces.”
That did it. Clean, recognizable, and actually sewable — no tiny pieces that would be a nightmare to fuse and stitch down.
4th Canva Iteration
If you’ve got something meaningful that you’d love to turn into an appliqué — a pet, a hobby, a machine you’ve named (no judgment, we all do it) — this same step-by-step “simplify, simplify again, then get specific about your medium” approach works for just about anything.
Nancy’s Beast is going to be a wonderful addition to her Quilting… You Say? quilt. Can’t wait to see it finished.
Happy Quilting!
