Feeling Groovy

I briefly tried my hand at applique. It was not for me for several reasons; it was super time consuming. It gunked up my machine and I’m not that great of a seamstress so I sewed all crooked.

I thought I would share what I made and what a pain in the bazooka it was.

Step 1 – Find a template. I found a cute photo of a VW bug and printed several copies out because I needed to cut an outline and the individual parts.

Step 2 – Cut it out. Cut the outline. Cut all the individual pieces.

Step 3 – Choose your fabrics and cut squares a little larger than each piece. Actually, cut the squares at least a half inch larger on all sides.

Step 4 – Cut squares of double-sided heat bond paper a little smaller than your fabric squares. This saves your iron from getting gunked up.

Step 5 – Iron the fabric onto the heat bond. There’s instructions on the paper. Usually, the smooth side of the paper faces down and the fabric goes on top of the rougher side.

Step 6 – Take a nap because the first five steps took an eternity.

Step 7 – Pin the paper templates onto the fabric pieces and cut them out. This step was pretty easy because the heat-bond made everything stiff.

Step 8 – Start assembling your design. Iron each layer or individual piece onto the outline piece and sew around each piece in a zigzag stitch or satin stitch.

Step 9 – Iron and sew it onto whatever you want to put it on. I sewed it onto a white piece of fabric because I had no clue what I wanted to do with it. I had an idea to do something for a friend who likes VWs but that was it.

I had to clean and oil my machine because the glue on the heat-bond paper gunked my machine up. Apparently, I hadn’t cleaned it all up because I saw the stain after I finished sewing it. I wanted to cry.

I had made a needle book for my needles for when I do hand sewing projects and posted it on FB and the aforementioned friend asked if I could make her a fabric book for her so I did. She loves anything tie-dye so I made the following book. If you want details on how to make it, I will make a separate post.