Let’s start with what is appliqué? Appliqué is needlework where pieces of fabric in different shapes and patterns are sewn onto background fabric to form a picture or pattern.
Embroidery machines make the art of appliqué substantially simpler, but a lot of quilters still prefer doing the handwork. I have never been a fan of hand sewing – that’s what machines were made for!
Let’s take a look at hand appliqué first.
Tools to help
Speciality paper is available for the purpose of appliqué. Appliqué paper has paper over a webbing that becomes sticky when heat is applied. You draw your appliqué design on the paper side, press that to the wrong side of your fabric and then trim the fabric by using the outline drawn on the paper.
The paper is then removed and the design pressed to the background fabric. All pretty simple and straight forward. You can then stitch decorative stitches around the appliqué, or use a blanket stitch to neaten the edges.
Nowadays it has become popular to run a straight stitch around the edge a few times giving it a more contemporary frayed look.
Preparing shapes
There are two ways to prepare appliqué shapes for quilting or handwork projects. The first is the finished size and has a raw edge. You draw the shape on the appliqué paper, apply to the fabric and cut it out.
The second has a turned under seam allowance. In this case one would cut the shape from the fabric with an added seam allowance, and turn it over before attaching it to the background fabric. You can then use a ladder stitch to attach it leaving a very neat finish.
No embroidery machine – but you also don’t like hand sewing?
The same methods can be applied to appliqué with your sewing machine.
Older machines don’t have a blanket stitch, but you can use a zig-zag set to a short length to create a satin stitch.
If you’re in the market for a new machine, don’t get one that doesn’t have a true blanket stitch! Some machines have stitches that resemble a blanket stitch, but are not 100% suitable to appliqué with a sewing machine.
What’s in a blanket stitch?
A blanket stitch can also be called a hemstitch, point de Paris, or pin stitch.
A true blanket stitch has a single straight stitch forward, then a perpendicular stitch to the left and back again, then another stitch forward. Remember that you can use the mirror image function if the stitches stitch to the right. The idea is that the straight stitch lies exactly on the edge of your appliqué shape, and the perpendicular stitches attaches the shape to the background.
Here are examples of the different stitches that are available with sewing machines and what a true stitch looks like on the graph of a machine.
- The multiple blanket stitch is difficult to manoeuvre around curves and points.
- The overlock stitch makes it difficult to stitch around points and curves as well.
- The double stitch blanket stitch doesn’t work as well because it doesn’t fill in well along the edge of the appliqué.
How to appliqué on embroidery machines
Here are the steps we follow in our appliqué designs. All our projects come with detailed instructions, and these are from the Fuzzy Wuzzy quilt.