Brute Force Applique

Try this method when your frustration level is high and your pieces aren't too small.

1. trace shapes onto freezer paper (FP), cut out, and iron them, shiny side down, onto the back side of your applique fabric.

2. Cut out, leaving 1/4 inch or at least 3/16 inch seam allowance all around.

3. with tip of iron, iron the seam allowance over onto the FP, leaving a nice crease. There may be a little rumpling. Don't worry.

4. Baste down the seam allowance. Sew right through the freezer paper. Do not use your best needle for this. Some force may be necessary. Points may be lumpy.

Here is F-13, Tour de France. Iron your applique pieces flat, flattening out rumples and lumpy points.

5. Place your applique piece on background fabric. Pin into place. Put the point of the pin to back side of your piece so that your thread does not catch on it.

6. Using best needle and thin thread, applique around your piece. I finish, remove the basting stitches, then cut a slit in the back and remove the freezer paper with tweezers. Or, you may stop 3/4 of the way and remove the basting, then remove the FP.

Iron block flat.

I started doing this when just a crease was not enough to follow, or, with freezer paper on the back (no basting) the FP would slide off and my melons would look strange.

Not recommended for heirloom sewing! :-)

viridian61

The view from here

I was wondering.... now that I have 83 blocks and some triangles for my 1800's Christmas Jane quilt, what does it look like so far? Here is what it looks like, set out on the floor. Not every block got in the shot.

I was obsessing about all the applique of tiny pieces, but I said to myself, Self, it is your quilt. You do not need to applique tiny melons, unless it is integral to the design, or you want to. You can machine piece and paper piece every block you can. Or do it by hand if you want to.

viridian61