Making and Sewing Appliques

Create visual interest by sewing appliques to your projects.

You'll see appliques on clothing, pillows, quilts, curtains, purses. You can buy them ready made or you can make your own. Almost anything made with fabric can be appliqued and almost any fabric can be used as an applique! Your sewing skill will determine the fabrics used. I recommend you stick with medium weight cottons or lightweight felts if you are a beginner when experimenting and sewing appliques.

Application Methods

Machine application using a zig-zag satin stitch is the most common method used when sewing appliques due to the eye appeal and sturdiness it provides around your design. Machine stitching using a blanket stitch is another popular method as well as hand stitching using the blanket stitch and embroidery threads. (The anchor on the skirt costume shown was applied using a sewing machine and zig-zag stitch.)

Make Applique Patterns From Cookie Cutters!

To make an appliqué from a cookie cutter:

On paper, trace around the outside of the cookie cutter. I like to use squares of medium weight tear-away stabilizer (the kind used with machine embroidery). Many people like to use freezer paper. Don’t have either? No problem! Use whatever paper you have on hand.

If you want to enlarge or reduce the size, now is the time. Simply retrace the design either on the outside (to enlarge) or on the inside (to reduce) keeping your new line an equal distance from the first line.

Cut out your pattern. Now wasn't that easy?

Make Appliques from Designs Already Printed on Fabrics

Ok, what am I talking about?

Many fabrics have wonderful designs already printed on them which make wonderful appliques. All YOU have to do is cut the design out from the fabric!

What kind of designs? To start with, look at floral fabrics. Some of the large designs such as roses can be cut out and made into a beautiful applique. When sewing projects for children, look at "licensed" fabrics. A licensed fabric means it has characters or a design under license to the company that created the character. Examples are fabrics with Disney licensed characters, Winnie the Pooh, Dora the Explorer, My Little Pony and others. Sewing appliques from favorite characters will delight the children in your life.

Years ago, I made my daughter several pairs of elastic waisted pajama shorts from fabric with her favorite Loony Tunes characters. From the excess material, I cut out a couple of the characters and appliqued them to plain white t-shirts. Voila! Inexpensive sleepwear with tops and bottoms that have a matching theme. She loved them.

Other kinds of cute prints which make wonderful appliques would be bug fabrics, princess fabrics, ballerina fabrics. Get the idea?

Applying An Applique

Take the fabric you have chosen for your applique and lay it on your cutting surface face up. Place your pattern on the fabric. If your fabric has no design or the same design repeated over and over, placement will be simple. If your fabric has multiple designs on it, you may want to play with the placement of your pattern in order to get exactly the "look" you want.

Next, pin your pattern or temporarily adhere using a light fabric spray adhesive (just aim carefully and don’t over spray - it does leave a sticky residue). Even better, use a dab or two from a “purple” gluestick which can be purchased at any office supply store.

Cut out as many as you need.

Once you have determined where you want to permanently affix your new appliqué on your project's fabric, secure it using pins or fabric adhesive as mentioned above. Now you are ready to start sewing appliques.

This is it! Final step!

Sew it on using your sewing machine’s appliqué stitch or a satin stitch and don’t rush. You’ll be using a lot of hand action to manipulate the fabric under the presser foot as you attach the design.

I prefer using a satin stitch with the zig-zag width set to 5 or 6 and the stitch length set to 3. Try out different combinations on a practice scrap of fabric to see what settings YOU prefer. For satin stitching, keep the middle of your presser foot (there should be a mark to indicate the middle) on the edge of your appliqué piece. This puts the stitching half on the appliqué and half on your project fabric.

Also...

If your sewing machine converts to an embroidery machine, there are many appliqué embroidery designs available to you by professional digitizers. One of my favorite sites for appliques and other designs for children’s clothing and accessories is Bunnycup Embroidery. Their designs are absolutely precious! Embroidery Library also has a large selection of darling applique designs for embroidery. Need instruction? Windstar Embroidery has an excellent tutorial regarding sewing appliques using your machine embroidery feature.