WIP applique

A close up of the leaf section of the ROS quilt

This is one of the first ones I stitched on, they can bequite fidley to do because of the fabric I have chosen. It's a rayon type fabric that freys easily but it has a lovely sheen on it and is hardwearing.

I decided against bondaweb after it left glue marks on the fabric and made it quite stiff, ok for wall hangings but not for a lap quilt, I want if to drape nicely and feel soft.

Theresa suggested that I use a different method for these pieces, she showed me some applique pieces she had bought from USA which had been backed , this made them easy to sew on and took the frayed edge problem away.  I wasn't keen at first but after stitching another couple on, I decided I would try this other method. I don't know if it has a name,  if you know of it and can tell me what its call do let me know.

You could do it by hand but I decided to use my machine

The fabric is pinned right sides together with a thin backing fabric,  and the outline of the shape is drawn onto the backing fabric.

The outline is then stitched on the machine, leaving an opening somewhere

the piece is then cut out and trimmed close to the stitch line turned inside out, ironed flat then stitched in place. Here is a picture of how it looks.

It's not as flat as the other one but still looks good, and I think it will be more durable.

I have to say it was so much easier to stitch down, although some might think this is cheating.....

I decided to try this method with the outer petal section and took more pictures to show you.

As these shapes had already been cut out and marked with the outline on the back, I place these right side down onto the backing fabric and stitched on top of the outline

Cut them out and sniped across the corners 

turned them inside out..........

I used this ball end tool to help me get into the corners

and ironed them flat.

it was more difficult stitching these into place and some puckering occurred on the inner petal piece as you can see in the next picture......

but I was able to straighten most of it out when I stitched along the other side

this puckering is mainly due to the fact that the inner petal pieces were not a more uniform shape as they were stitched on the using a different method......hope I'm making sense here

I think if this method was used for the inner petal pieces also then they would all fit nicely together.

Although this method, does take more time preparing the pieces and involves using the sewing machine, its quite straightforward and I think once you have the pieces it's still enjoyable to sit and hand stitch them in place, what you don't get is the fiddly fraying edges popping out and I'm not having to find the outline all the time.

I will decide at the end of this forth block whether I will carry on with this method for all the shapes on the blocks on the other side, or to revert back to just using it for the grey leaf sections where it worked well.

Its been so long since we worked on Adeles quilt I forget how I stitched them.