A Bit of Appliqué

Monday I managed to mail off the burp cloths I made over the weekend. This week I finished the straight-line free motion quilting on my Simple Gifts quilt that I started back in January. The piecing had gone fairly quickly, the assembly and arranging took place in February, but I have been working on the echo quilting of the gifts since early April. In retrospect, it is dubious how "free" straight-line ruler work is. I think perhaps it is an oxymoron. All I have left to do on Simple Gifts is trim the edges, make and attach the labels, and sew on the binding. Hopefully I will have a reveal within a week.

This week I started the bit of appliqué that is part of the quilt with checkerboards. I decided against a fusible method because I wanted to avoid stiff sections in the quilt and I did not want the look of zigzag over raw edges. After googling appliqué techniques and watching some YouTube videos I decided to go with a freezer paper technique so the raw edges would be turned under. I am fortunate that my husband has a light table for his model train hobby so I used it to trace my appliqué templates.

The freezer paper is translucent enough and the light is strong enough that I could use a simple mechanical pencil and trace the shape, no problem.

For a mirror image template I folded the freezer paper over on itself waxy sides together and traced the mirror image from the traced original. I realized afterward, as I was cutting out these templates, that I could have skipped drawing a mirror image. Instead I could have just cut on the drawn line for the first template through two thickness of freezer paper folded over on itself.

Here are my drawn templates before cutting them out. There are five pair in total. I numbered them just to keep them paired in case the mirror images were not alike and not interchangeable. I first numbered the outer corner and them realized that part was getting trimmed away. It is possible that the freezer paper can be reused several times. But I decided the tracing was not too time-consuming and so I made enough templates to use each only once.

I cut out each paper spiral template on the drawn line. Then, using my standard Rowenta full-size iron, I pressed the freezer paper waxy side down on the right side of my appliqué fabric.

Then I cut each shape out of the fabric leaving a 1/4" or so seam allowance to turn under outside the drawn lines.

  I then peeled off the freezer paper from the right side and put it on the back side, waxy side up.

Then I use this handy dandy little appliqué mini-iron by Clover to press that seam allowance over the edge of the template, adhering it to the freezer paper. This is the most time consuming part of the process so far. I have only complete one spiral out of ten. That little iron takes longer than I expected to heat up way out at the tip, but it does get hot enough eventually. I just needed to patient.

In the lower right is one of those spirals with the edges turned under surrounded by three other spirals waiting to be cut out. As I practice, I think those curved edges will become smoother even in the tighter central section of the spiral. I may need to re-do my first couple attempts perhaps.

The YouTube video I found by googling "YouTube freezer paper appliqué" was a 4 minute long demonstration by Connecting Threads. In it the teacher says to leave the template paper inside and stitch down the appliqué. Then you are to cut a slit in the background fabric behind the appliqué and remove the paper. I am reluctant to slit the background so I am going to try steaming those folded under edges really well so they are hard creased and removing the paper before I attach the appliqué to my background.

In the interest of time and ability to withstand multiple launderings, I am choosing to skip needle turned hand appliqué in favor of attachment by machine. The instructor in the video used a stitch that goes just outside the appliqué and takes a nip inward every few stitches. With only a few stitches in the paper, it can probably be removed without too much trouble. I plan instead to stitch along very close to the edges with a straight stitch so if I left the paper in it might not come out easily. The top-stitching will show but I think it will secure the appliqué better and I am OK with that look. It will not be as broad as a raw edge satin stitch would be and I hope it still gives nice definition. I will post how that works out in practice when I do it.

For now I am linking up to WIP Wednesday at this week's Freshly Pieced.