Revised Appliqué Technique (Advanced)

1.       Each design DOES have its own modus operandi; it does have to be thought about.
Some of which have a dark background (negative appliqué), others, light (positive appliqué), both of which mean trying to cut down on material wastage.

2.       It is useful to know the shape of the finished skin. Pre-cutting the shape before sewing saves a possible deformation of the outline.

3.       ….essentials, because they make things easier.

4.       Take your time……and……enjoy.

This is handling the negative appliqué method…….

Having drawn or printed out the design, place it face down on the light table.

 

Taking the darkest colour (maybe it is the skin, maybe not) put face down on to the BACK of the design.

Hot cut out the design, which also adheres it to the paper, and remove the pieces that will become coloured.

 

Note: Some materials are coated both sides, if not, use a permanent marker to find out which side “bleeds”.

Flip the design with the hot cut material over, face down, and place a piece of tracing paper large enough to cover the next brighter colour to be cut.

Place colour FACE UP on the tracing paper over the area to be hot cut allowing about 3-4mm seam allowance ON THE DARKER colour, but not for the next brighter and remove the unwanted material.

Peel off the tracing paper with the next colour from the main design (if it “sticks” to the main design too much, then the hot cutting tool is too hot)!

 

Flip over the main design and place the tracing paper with the material face down and align with said,

 

…placing a long edge i.e. ruler, over everything, fold the paper back and apply glue to the seam areas,

 

…press the paper back onto the design so that the 2 pieces of material adhere to one another, best done 10cm at a time…

1.       …because the glue “dries” pretty fast (I am using a textile glue “Gütermann HT2” which doesn’t clog the needle and remains subtle).

 2.       We still want to enjoy what we are doing…….

Given a short period of time (we are talking, “less than a few minutes”), peel off the tracing paper (carefully), leaving 2 layers of material stuck together on the back of the drawing….. really???...yes.

OK…next colour, flip over the design (with the 2 colours)....

…face down….tracing paper (also functions as a heat buffer) over the back of the design….next colour (face up),

hot cut allowing for the overlap on the darker colours,

Remove unwanted material,

peel off the tracing paper, flip the design, align the next colour (on the tracing paper) face down, 

glue together, peel off paper….…next colour...

……..3 colours are fine, but if we have 11+, you will then realize that the previous planning thoughts were necessary.

Theoretically we now have a complete skin which is then (carefully) removed from the original design (paper)....

 

.............and ready to sew.

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