Applique

This morning as I was putting away the halloween decorations and putting up the Thanksgiving ones I realized something! I don't have Thanksgiving decorations! haha

Being married only a couple of years, around the holidays I find myself missing the most random things from my childhood. One of which are holiday theme hand towels. My mother was and is the "Queen of theme" transforming our home every holiday(no matter how small the holiday). She always had special hand towels to match so I decided I would make a decorative hand towel for my home! Plus I've been wanting to post a tutorial on Appliqué so here we go!

Trace out what design you would like to applique on the fabric. They have all kinds of markers and pencils in the sewing section to use for this but I couldn't find any of mine so I just used a ball point pen- if my sewing teachers could see me!

Cut out your shapes and place them on some kind of permanent sewing adhesive (usually called Heat&Bond).

Use the tip of your Iron to melt the backing to it a little. You don't want it to be totally stuck on the back yet, just stuck enough so that they don't come apart easily. The Heat&Bond directions tell you to apply the adhesive before you cut out your shape. I did it this way for a project and I had a good reason too but now I can't remember what that is haha. Whatever works best for you. Just make sure you don't place the Iron directly on the adhesive- it will gum up you Iron =(

Cut out shape again in the paper

Peel paper backing off of glue (which should be semi-attached to fabric shape

Iron on Shapes to fabric. Let Iron sit on the shape for as long as the directions say- don't move the Iron around.

Stitch around the edges of your shape to secure it. You can do this by hand but I prefer to do it on my machine.

You can also add decorative stitching like me

There you go! Not much too it! Send me pictures of something you've made and I might spot light you in a future post! Happy Holidays!