9 Quick and Easy Quilt Applique Techniques

Hi. I love to applique, but I didn't use to. And one of the reasons I love to applique now is because I've learned all these different ways to applique. So depending on my mood and the project I can choose from different techniques, I'm not just stuck with one. So I'm just gonna run through nine ways to applique and show you the different ways that you have available to you when you wanna applique something. All right, so this is the first one I learned a million years ago. You take a piece of just heavy paper or one of the best things is you know how magazines come with all those cards that are blown in or fastened in, you just rip them out, they're perfect for this. And what I'm gonna do, I'm going to trace my shape, in this case it's a heart, onto the paper like that, or my card. You don't want it really heavy. Like most postcards are gonna be too heavy, but the weight you want is like those things in magazines, the subscription cards. All right. Now, that's all traced. And what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna cut it out. This seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? All right. A heart is a really good shape to practice on if you're new to applique, because it has both a point and a valley and that's important to know how to handle those two things. Because if you can handle a point and a valley in a heart you're gonna be able to handle it on a leaf or on on billy goats beard, anything you're working on. So there's my piece of card. If you're doing a bunch of these and you're using card you can cut out multiple layers at a time. All you do is you stack up your cards or your heavy paper and you're staple it together all the way around. Then you just trace it once on the top guy, or you can trace him first and then stack them up and you can cut out a whole bunch at once. You don't have to cut each one individually. And this is the fabric for my applique. I'm gonna put this on the back, like that, and I'm just gonna stick a pin through there. And the next thing I'm gonna do is I'm going to thread my needle. Now, this is my fabulous needle threading trick here. The easiest way to thread a needle is to just fold the thread over the needle like that, and then you push the eye of the needle onto that little fold of thread. Instead of trying to put it through the eye. And then you just do a little quilters knot at the end, which is, I lick my finger, which you know, and you wrap it around your finger once and you just roll it off your finger and there's your knot right there. So just gonna cut off that extra big tail. All right. And what I'm gonna do, I'm putting my glasses on so I can see, and I've got that in place like that. And what I'm going to do is sew my fabric to my card. And I'm just gonna take great big stitches like this. Just big old stitches. Because what I wanna do is I just wanna hold that in place, like that. This is the first thing I learned. I learned this from my grandmother when I was really little and it still works. Okay, oops. There we go. Just like that. This is something you can do, you can do endless shapes like this, endless templates, when you're sitting, waiting for someone to get out of their soccer practice or their basketball practice or their piano lesson. If you have kids, this is the kind of thing you can take with you. You just cut out a bunch, put them in a box. It's also great during football season if you want something to do that doesn't really take a lot of thought. So there we go. It's really just very roughly sewn place like that. And then I'm gonna take my scissors and I'm just gonna cut, that 1/4 inch seam allowance around. Let's get rid of that thread, like that. You might want to start with a smaller piece of fabric. I'm using a big one, but I don't have to and neither do you. You just wanna make sure you have enough fabric to do that 1/4 inch, or there, but you know 1/4 inch or so, scant 1/4 inch seam allowance. Okie doke, got one. That's a little long, big there. I'll just trim that down a little bit more. And what I'm gonna do for the valley part I'm just gonna make a little cut right down here, right there, like that, you see that? And down here where the point is I'm just gonna cut that right across, right straight across, like that, and just trim this up a tad more. And now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna bring this to the iron. This is my super duper, really hot little iron. This is my little Rowenta travel iron. I absolutely love it, because it stays way hot. Of course, that can be problematic too, so be careful. And I'm going to just press this over my card like that and how it makes this nice little shape. Whoops. Let's get that right on the edge like that. There we go. And you see how nicely it just folds around there, like that. Now, if you want to when you're working on this, because you're throwing away that piece of card, you have other options. To get that edge just right what you can do is pull out applique glue. Ta-da. This is the Appli-Glue by Jillily Studio, which I like a lot. And you just gotta put a tiny, whew, that's fast, a tiny little bit of glue, right on the edge of your paper, like that. And then I'm just gonna press that over the edge, like that. There we go. You see how nicely that's coming? 'Cause what you want is this, you want this nice soft curve. You don't want it to be too jiggly. Well, look at that, yay, boiling off. All right, so when you have this all around, like that, you're gonna be able to stitch it down in place. All right, so that's one way to prepare a shape. There we go. So if I did the whole edge you can see what a beautiful edge this is here. You just do that all the way around and then you're gonna be able to applique either by hand or by machine. I'm gonna show you how to do that in a minute. So this is the first one, you just use a piece of card. All right, and you're ready to go. Another one. All right, this is a little piece of heat resistant template plastic. It has to be heat resistant or bad things will happen. So what I'm going to do, I've cut out, this is gonna be a petal and I've cut out my template plastic, and I've got this little line here. That's where it's gonna fit underneath, it's a flower pedal, where it's gonna fit under the center. So that's just marked there so I know where it is. And now what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna grab my needle. Alrighty, same thing. Ah, my needle is wiggling away or my thread is. And I'm gonna do the same thing where I pinch the thread right over. There we go. All right. So this time what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna just take a few little stitches right along the edge, like this. I traced it and then I cut it out, leaving about 1/8 of an inch or maybe a little more of a seam allowance. And I'm just gonna go around there like that. If you want, you can take really tiny stitches. You can have like 1/8 of an inch stitch, well, these kind of are that anyway, but you can take more if you want. I'm just gonna whip through this really kind of quickly. And, of course, you can load your needle like that. It doesn't really matter when you're doing things like this where the grain is, where your bias is, but if you want to make life a little easier wherever your curve is most pronounced you're gonna wanna get a bias grain on there. And that's where lengthwise grain is going along the selvage, it's parallel to selvage. Crosswise grain is, of course, from selvage to selvage. And your bias grain is the one on the angle, on the diagonal, and it moves and wiggles and it gives you play. And that helps in something like this. So there it is. It's all sewn down and I'm gonna put my little guy right in the middle, like that, my template. And then I'm gonna pull up the threads, working it around like that and just pull until they're all gathered up, like this. There we go. And now that it's gathered around that curve I can press it like that. To make life really easy, I'll grab some spray starch or you can use the liquid starch, a lot of people do that. They mix up liquid starch and they do it that way. But I like this. It's just easier for me. If you happen to be using spray starch, like I am, one thing, one little tip I have for you is the tip can get really clogged easily. So when you're finished, every day when you're finished using your spray starch just take that little cap off, that little tip off and rinse it out in the sink. All right, and there you go. You just hold that on like that and when your starch is dry you have this perfect little shape and you can just sneak the template out of there and it's already to applique in place. All right, so another way to use starch, move that guy over there, is without that stitching around the edge. Instead, what you can do, got a heart again. I'm going to trim like I did before, I'm gonna cut right down there, 'cause that's gonna make life much easier, and here. And then I'm going to do something kind of weird. Now, if you have liquid spray starch, you're already set. But if you don't, did you know that you can spray starch into your cup and you have liquid spray starch? And I happen to have right here a little paint brush. So what I'm gonna do, this is, again, heat resistant template plastic, 'cause ironing on template plastic that isn't heat resistant is bad. And I'm just going to use that starch that I put in the cup and I'm just gonna use my little paintbrush to paint it all around the edge like that. I think this is so handy. But as I said, a lot of people like to mix up their own starch, so they get exactly the strength they want and if that's what you wanna do, then that's what you should do. There we go. All right, all set. Dink, dink, dink. And now I'm gonna do the same thing with the iron where I can push it right over the edge, like that, and like that. Your iron at home might be a little hotter than this one. Oh, and there's a thought, okay, here's a tip, don't touch your finger with your iron. Keep your fingers back. I'm sure if you've been quilting very long you know exactly what I'm talking about. And another tip, this template plastic can get really hot. So when you're using it, make sure you don't put your fingers right where you just had the iron. Now, when I get to this little point here, that little point right there where I had the cut down in the valley, I'm gonna use this, this is an awl that my sister gave me. And I'm just gonna bend that over like that with the awl and kind of work it in place, so I have control 'til it's just the way I want, and then I'm gonna press it. Not pressing my finger. Although I've certainly pressed my finger a gazillion times in life, but let's not do it this time. Now, what's nice about this template plastic, because it's a harder edge than the card, it's really easy to iron up against it. There you go. So here's what this one looks like. Same thing. Do you see how nice that edge is? And it's pretty simple and easy. And when you take that out, when you have it all ready, when you have it all pressed on all the sides. There we go. I'm just gonna do a little bit there. And you can take that out and you can use this over and over and over again. It's not gonna get ruined. And there is it's what it's gonna look like. So there's that one. Now, another kind of applique that's kind of different and you don't see it very often, it's much more common in South America, is something we call reverse applique. Reverse applique is when your colored, your heart is underneath. And what you do is you turn the top under and that's how this is gonna show through. So in order to do that the first thing I'm going to do is I'm gonna take that little template I had and I'm going to trace it on the back of my piece that's the background, not the heart itself. This is where the heart will be. And so what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna trace this around on my fabric. If you're, obviously if you're trying to place this in a block what you're gonna wanna do is find the center of the block or wherever that heart should be. And you're gonna wanna make sure that you position this properly. I'm just gonna put this on here so you can see, there we go. Sometimes my tracing is less than fabulous and that has been true from the time I was in kindergarten. Some things just never change. So there's my heart. And I'm gonna darken it a little bit, but not a lot, just enough so I can see it. This is the shape that you're gonna want to cut out or to turn around, to turn to the back. So you still need that little turn under. So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna cut out the center part, but I'm gonna leave 1/4 of an inch to turn to the wrong side. I'm gonna do this. Ah. Alrighty, like this, just keep cutting it out. Whoops, come on, baby. Like this. There we go. If you've ever been to Central America you may have seen something called a Mola. Mola is this wonderful kind of embroidery that is full of reverse applique. There we go. And now I'm just gonna cut along the curves. I'm just gonna, see that? I'm just cutting along there, 'cause I'm gonna be turning them to the back, to the wrong side, like that. I would do the same thing all the way around on the curves. Alrighty, and I'm also gonna make it a little bit smaller there and I would cut along here as well, because what you wanna be able to do is turn this to the wrong side. Now, once I have that like that, you can do this two ways. You can, from the back you can press it along the line, like that. Just gently along that line. I'm gonna take another little snip here. Like that. Making sure you can just turn it back carefully. There we go. Now, if you like needle turn applique, you'll be able, you can do that too. You would just do it from the front and you would turn to that penciled line. But I'm just gonna do this from the back. There we go. And that's all there is to it. Just gonna keep on turning. And pressing to the back along the line. A couple more snips. All right, there we go. And just press that back. If you haven't snipped far enough it's not gonna turn back the way you want it to. I'm just gonna snip a little further. All right, here we go. I actually really like this technique. I find this one really easy. So there's half of it. And what you're gonna do then, you're gonna put this on top of the red, like that. And then you're gonna just hand stitch around the edge with a little slip stitch, something, an invisible stitch and I'll show you how to do that in a second. And there you go. You just stitch that down and you have a reverse applique, 'cause it's down below. All right. Raw edge applique is where you don't turn the edge under, you just have it sticking out. I know, it sounds weird, huh. But in lots of, sort of a primitive look, it's really fabulous and kind of cool. What I'm using here, I'm just using a wool thread, but pearl cotton works really well too. And it's just this simple. All you're doing is starting on the back and I come in about 1/4 of an inch or so. And this is big stitch. Big stitch is when your stitches are about 1/4 of inch long, excuse me, 1/4 inch long and about 1/4 of an inch apart. All right, and you're gonna go all the way around, like this. There we go. Now, you can load your needle if you're in a hurry, like if you're on-camera and you're trying to get things done, there we go. This is a good way for kids to applique, because they can't screw it up and they're not working with little fussy edges, and there's no little point or valley to worry about. This is a good way for children to applique. And it's actually really fun for grown-ups too. So that's what I'm gonna do. Just stitch all the way around. And then when you wash this, when you throw this in the washing machine, which you don't have to do, but I recommend it, what happens is all those little edges come up and they fray a little bit and it does, it has that lovely primitive look. And that's all you're gonna do. You just stitch all the way round back to where you started and that's it. That's one kind of raw edge applique. Alrighty, and then I'm gonna show you a couple of more common ways to applique. This is freezer paper. I've cut a heart out of the freezer paper. Freezer paper has two sides, it has a paper side and a shiny side. The shiny side has a wax on it, but the wax doesn't ever leave it, it just stays there. And what you can do, you can iron it in place with the wax side down and use that to cut out, which is a handy-dandy way to cut out your fabric. So there we go. Now, one thing, you don't want that iron too terribly hot when you're working with freezer paper, or if you're gonna have a hot iron, which actually I have right now, all you do is make it fast. And what this is doing is giving me that easy way to cut the shape out, like that. Here. Yours can be tidier than mine, because you're gonna be doing yours at home, but there, okay. And then, once you have that done, if you have, in this case, I have a symmetrical shape, I can do this. You can peel it off and you put the shiny side up. All right. And again, you're just gonna press those edges over the freezer paper and the wax is gonna hold them. All right, like that. If you have an asymmetrical shape you really are gonna have to cut out your fabric in a way not using the freezer paper, making sure you give yourself that seam allowance. And then once I have this all pressed over, we're gonna pretend that's all pressed over. I'm gonna show you something really cool about this. Ah, and see the wax got on there, it doesn't hurt anything. It won't get on anything else. Then what you can do is you put that, that side down, that shiny side down with the wax, you put that in place wherever you're gonna applique. Of course, your edges would be all nicely turned under. And what you're gonna do, when you just press it from the top like that, it keeps it in place. And yet because you have that little edge turned under there it's gonna leave that little edge there for you to hand sew down, but your whole template is staying in place. All right, and that's freezer paper applique. Fusible web. Fusible web is, it's a thing that has usually, this is paperback feasible web where it's got one side that's gonna fuse and one side that you're gonna trace on. If you're using feasible web, you're gonna wanna make sure that you trace the reverse image. So you're gonna want to flop whatever it is. In most magazines and patterns they will have already done that for you, but because you're going to, when you put it in place, it's gonna come back like this. So on the wrong side of the fabric I'm gonna put the, you can feel it, you can feel the side the sticky on it. I'm gonna just put that like that. There we go. Now, you'll notice that I had my heart traced, but I didn't cut the freezer paper out right on the, I mean, the fusible web right on the heart line. I cut it a little bit outside it, because this is where you cut it out after you've got it fastened onto your face. All right. And then once you have it cut out you wanna remove that paper backing. And there are all different ways to do it, but I find the easiest way for me is to take a needle or a pin or in this case, the awl, and just scratch across it and pull it off, like that. If you find that you're having a hard time getting the paper off or that your fusible web isn't fusing, lots of times the reason is because your iron is too hot, not too cold. So if you find yourself in that situation, turn that iron down. I'll just put it on blue. And see there, it's all set and ready to go. I'll just put that there. Ta-da. Now, some people don't like fusible web, because they don't like the way it feels. And it's a little thick, but it sure is pretty. And it's, and then you can machine the edge if you wanna keep it secure. But if you don't like that feeling, because it feels kind of thick, what you can do, same thing, I traced that and then I'm gonna cut out the inside, like that, before I fuse it in place. So then the only fusible web you have is that edge. Just that little, whoops, that little 1/4 inch wide bit of fusible web. Like that. And then everything else just the same. Put that in place, fuse it, and then when you cut it out you're going to end up, whoops, let me change my scissors. It's exactly the same that you did the other way. Excuse me, with the other piece of fusible web, but when you tear it off, you don't have very much to tear off and it's a lot more drapey. It's not so kind of thick and stiff. Here we go. All right, there we go. Just cut that out. Ta-da. And the same thing, I'm just gonna take my awl to just go across that paper just to get it started and gonna peel it off, like that. Ta-da. And then I got one little thing here that didn't cut as nicely as I would've liked it to. I'm just going to prune that right there, there you go. And the same thing. I can just put it right here next to the other one, like that. And you'll see, this is, this one's much stiffer than this one. Some shapes won't lend themselves to this, but there you go. The last two I wanna show you mean I need to get on the machine. So I'm gonna grab the machine and I'll show you how these work. Another way that you can applique and this is pretty tricky, fun too, and this is pretty sneaky. All right, this is fusible interfacing and I have the fusible side down, oh, it's the right side, it's against the right side of the fabric. And I'm just gonna take this to my machine, put on my glasses. And I'm just gonna use a straight stitch to just sew this together. There we go. I just wanted to get my needle down, so I can pivot a little bit. Now, I'm just sewing right on the line. I traced this, traced my template onto the paper side or the the non-glue side of the fusible interfacing. It's different from fusible web. Now, this is something people use for garments and all, because it's a fabric more than a, like a kind of just, by the time you take the paper off of the fusible web you just sort of have a sheet of glue and this is different. All right. Well, I'm stitching all the way around, like that. This works really well on simple shapes, leaves and hearts and petals and things like that. There we go. I've stitched all the way around. And now I'm going to go ahead and cut along here. I'm just cutting through both layers, trimming it to about 1/8 of an inch or so, right around like that. I'm trimming both of them. And you're thinking what the heck, because your fabric is caught in there. The pretty fabric is stuck, but not for long. You'll see. This is a really good one if you're having a hard time getting your curved edges turned under. All right, just gonna trim that off. Same thing here, I'm just gonna trim right there. So what I'm gonna do now, I'm actually going to just cut into the middle of this. Don't cut the fabric, just cut the interfacing, like that. Just sort of like that, because I'm gonna turn it inside out, like this. Okie doke. Whoops, it's escaping. Make my things bigger. At home you can keep them smaller, 'cause you're just gonna have a little time to do it there. There we go. And I like using a crochet hook for turning things. You can use a pencil or something like that. I like a crochet hook, because it has that nice rounded end and I don't worry that it's gonna go right through something perforated. There we go. Now, I've got this turned inside out, like that. And now I'm just gonna work out the curves. See, that kind of bevel part of the crochet hook works really nicely for this. Here we go. There's the point, right around like that. Got the other shoulder of the heart out, like that. There we go. I'm just running along with my crochet hook. You could use a pencil eraser, or a chop stick, or whatever you want. And then I'm going to, whoops, let's do it on this one. I am just gonna show you how easily this comes out. You're gonna work to make that just a really, really nice curving edge, which just takes a little time. And you're gonna press it with your iron and you're not gonna press it on the desk top, unless this stuff is pretty heat resistant and I like it cause it makes it nice and flat. And there you go, it stuck in place, so now you can stitch it down and stitch around the edge and you've got this really nice little curve. So that's another thing, the fusible interfacing. Do you remember how I was showing you the raw edge applique that was stitched down by hand with the blue wool? If you wanna do a raw edge applique in a machine, with a machine, it's so amazingly simple, truly simple. All you're gonna do is use a straight stitch and you can put it 1/8 of an inch from the edge or so. You're just gonna stitch it with a straight stitch, just a top stitch like that. And then when you wash it it'll fray a teeny bit and it'll look just fine. And that's all there is to it. It's that simple. And for some pieces of, some types of quilts, this just works perfectly well, it looks fine. So if you're happy with it, don't let anyone tell you this isn't okay. If you like it, it's okay. There we go, almost done. There we go. There, and so that's it. It would be tidier if you were doing this at home, but you get the idea, that's all you're doing. And a lot of people do this. Now, if you're interested in, if you think that's something you want to do, then what you're gonna, the other thing you can do is use that invisible thread, the monofilament, which is available, it's clear, but it's also in a smoke, which is really great on dark fabrics. So now you've got these hearts waiting to be edge stitched. Now, I'm gonna show you really quickly how to do a machine blanket stitch. Just a couple little tips. First of all, make sure you change your foot, so you don't snap everything, 'cause you're gonna be going to that, where it goes across, sort of like a zig-zag. So the easiest one to use is an open-toed foot, like this one, because you can really see where you're going. And then you select your, the whatever, however your machine gets a blanket stitch. Mine is a number 24. And then I'm just going to adjust it to the shape and size I want. And all you do is I'm gonna take a little piece here first to make sure I know which way that needle's gonna swing. Oh, it's swinging, see, it's going swinging to the right. That's what I need to know when I'm stitching. So it's swinging to the right. It's a good size, it looks okay. I might make it a little bigger and a little further apart, there. So, I know that it's gonna swing to the right, so that means I'm going to just, there we go, move the needle until it's over on that left position. And then I'm gonna put the foot down and I'm just gonna bring that needle down like this. Can you see? Right there, right along the edge of my fused piece of applique. And you're gonna just run right along the very edge of that applique. And the easiest thing to do is put your, the, if you have a needle down setting that's what works really well. And then you want to, you're gonna get used to this stitch. So once you know how, you'll know where you are on the stitch, whether it's going back and forth or side to side, and when you get to something like a point, which is where we're going right now, you're gonna put the needle down to pivot and you're gonna wanna pivot on either the outside or the inside, depending on what part of the stitch you're on, or what part of the applique. So now I'm going there and I know it's gonna go sideways like that. So what I'm gonna do, oh, my thread broke. All right, well, let's fix that. It'll only take a second. There we go. I don't know how I ever lived without a needle threader in my machine. I just don't. There we go. Now, it's back. So when I got to this point here, I was coming along like that, and it went, right there on the point of that heart, do you see that little point? And I'm just gonna make sure that that's nice and flat and now it's gonna do the, whoops, now it's gonna do the swing. There you go. And down and pivot, so that it goes along the side and then in. And you're gonna keep doing that all the way around, like this. Remembering that when you pivot you wanna keep the, the stitch that's going along the side here, you wanna keep that as close as you can just parallel to that edge. Now, every machine's different. You're gonna want to play with tension and size and all that. And what I recommend doing is go ahead and layer up some appliques like this and then keep, write down right on the fabric what's working for you. So I'm just gonna come along to the, I just wanna show you how to do this when you get to the valley. So if I'm coming along here, like that, and I get down to the valley I'm gonna be thinking ahead too, because I want to pivot here as well to keep it nice and neat. So right down to the point, back, now, I'm going to pivot that, so when it goes sideways, it goes straight down. Straight down in the heart I mean. Now, that's down and pivot. And I'll show you what that looks like. All right. There you go, you can see. Yeah, that's where I started. You can see how that comes right down the center and it looks all nice and tidy and the same thing down here, you're gonna come up from the bottom and that's what you're gonna do. And when you get to the very end, when you've gone all the way around and you come back to where you started, go to a regular straight stitch, like your number one or whatever, and just take a few little stitches right along the edge like that to lock it. All right, and then the very last thing to show you in this grand adventure of applique is how to hand stitch these in place. So I've gone ahead and I've got a knot and I have my thread already, my needle threaded. I have to have a thimble, but not everybody does. And this is just the simplest thing. If you wanna look it up online, if you're looking for some to really look at it, this is called a slip stitch. Whoops. Oh, that's right, let's get rid of those. And here what what you do. You're going to come up, I have this pinned in place. This is one of the ones that I prepared with the glue and the template plastic. I'm just gonna come right up on the very edge, you just wanna catch a couple threads. Can you see? Just a couple of threads. And then, oh, my knot wasn't big enough. Well, okay. There we go. I'm just gonna catch a couple threads there and then I'm gonna go down right where I came up and I'm gonna take a little stitch right at the very edge. You see, I'm kind of going right through that, the very edge of that prepared applique piece and I'm going right down, right next to it again, right, okay. And just right, you're gonna come right over that edge, because you're just trying to catch a teeny weeny bit. Like that. You see how tiny those stitches are? I'm using yellow, not because I think yellow is the best color for this, but because I think it makes it, well, you can see it better. And I wanna show you how when you just take a tiny lip edge, you just get that little lip of your applique piece. And now when you snug it up, now that's bright yellow, and do you see, it's almost invisible. So that's it. You have all kinds of techniques to choose from and I think you're gonna find one that really suits your personality or suits your project. So I hope you enjoy applique as much as I do.