Monday, January 17, 2011


Appliques! Love Them!

I have been sewing for little boys for about 6 years now and I have done an overabundance of applique over the years. Most of the time I opt to draw them out by hand and go around them manually with my sewing machine. Occasionally I go the other route and use the embroidery machine. I think how it turns out really depends on how experienced you are with them or how well the design was digitized if you are using an embroidery machine.

Last night I made Tristan another recycled tee from some of his brother and sister's old tees. The front of the tee has words all over, like Rock Lives and little green rock monsters with electric blue guitars and drums. The tee turned out cute, but I thought it needed matching pants.

I went with simple anti pill fleece for the pants, and the katrina soaker pattern made into longies for the pattern. Instead of plain black pants, I jazzed it up with a hand drawn applique. Super easy, you just draw the reverse image that you want onto heat and bond lite, fuse to the wrong side of the fabric scraps, cut them out and iron them down the way you would like onto your fabric. Make sure with fabrics that aren't pure cotton that you use a press towel so that you don't damage the synthetic material. I used scrap knits for my applique, so that I could straight stitch them without being afraid the edges would unravel. KNIT is my favorite thing to use for appliques. I just keep my scraps in a bag to save for future appliques.

I will have to post a tutorial for applique in the future. In the meantime, if you are doing applique, the most important thing to me is, a good stabilizer for underneath. I used a permanent stabilizer that is nice and soft. After I finished I just cut around the design. With each wash it will get a little softer.

Here is my baby boy in his new duds! Can you believe this guy will be 5 months old tomorrow? Where does time go?

Until tomorrow, happy sewing!

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