Applique the Frances way……

I have had the privilege of sitting under two different master Appliquer’s in the last month and it was eye-opening to see the techniques that each one employed.

But, it has even been more fun to figure out what my personal technique would be.   Because of the close proximity of these two classes, I have been able to adopt the parts of each technique that I like best and leave the others behind.

I am loving the way that Becky Goldsmith holds the needle and does her applique, but I am not as happy with the needle turn process.

On the other hand, I really like using freezer paper to prepare the applique’s as Linda Cantrell suggested, but I didn’t like using glue to hold the applique pieces in place.

SO…..I am preparing with freezer paper (ala Linda Cantrell), placing on the background using a Clear Vinyl pattern (ala Becky Goldsmith).

Interestingly, I spent a couple of minutes online tonight and found two more wonderful tips for applique.

The first was posted today by Leah Day and concerns attaching large pieces to a background.  She suggests placing the pieces on the background and then machine stitching around them using a wash-out thread.   That way there will be no shifting when you do the hand or machine applique work.

The second hint was on a You-tube video from Connecting Threads  (link is here).  The thing that I learned from this video is to iron the freezer paper template to the front of the fabric first and use that as the pattern to cut out the fabric.  You then peel the pattern off of the front and place it on the back of the fabric so that you can iron the edges over the shiny side of the freezer paper.

Not sure that those descriptions are all that great, but check out the links.

And, since I cant post  this without at least one photo….here is the applique piece that I am currently working on……