It’s Day Twenty-Five of National Sewing Month! Too see the daily blog posts, projects of the day, and more National Sewing Month details, click here.
Today we’re thrilled to welcome Becky from Patchwork Posse! Read on to see what she has to say about appliques!
I thought it would be fun to chat a little bit about applique. Not necessarily the process of sewing it, but where to get your fabric from to use on it.
Applique is a great quick and easy way to add a little something special and extra to a quilt, shirt, pants, bags…or whatever you can sew it to!
Typically we approach applique with this fabric for the stem, this for the flower…. or this for the head, this for the body….but today we are going to do something a little bit different.
We are going to chop up orphan quilt blocks to use for applique!
This is a great method for using those random quilt blocks that have no home, or maybe those that aren’t pieced the best.
Goodbye following the matching game, We are going to grab some blocks, cut them up and be totally OK with how they turn out.
When it comes to the quilt block, there are a couple of choices. You can pre-quilt it (or use one that is already pre-quilted like a cutter quilt), or you can go with what you have.
If you’d like to pre-quilt it:
1) Pin the quilt block wrong sides on top of batting
2) Quilt by machine, a meandor stitch, or stitch in the ditch.
Your block is ready to go!
Take a look at what you are going to be cutting out. Dig around and find a quilt block that will “work” with the subject. For example, I cut a pumpkin out of a fall-ish kind of block. I cut a ghost out of light and airy kind of quilt block.
Audition the template on the quilt block. Move it around to find the right combination of colors and design. Watch the seams that you don’t land one right on the edge – that will make sewing it to your final project a bit more difficult.
Another option would be to place applique in a strategic place on your quilt or project. Cover up those bad seams, points, or whatever else you don’t want others to see.
After you have cut everything out and placed it where you want it you can sew the edges down using a zig-zag or satin stitch for a raw edge applique.
This past year I have focused on orphaned quilt blocks and how to get them finished in a project. It has been a lot of fun finding a new purpose for something. You can find more tutorials and projects I have done here on my site: Sewing Projects for Quilt Blocks. You can also receive a free snail and butterfly applique template when you sign up for my newsletter!
What is the first quilting project you remember making?
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