Appliqué Explorations & Trim

Last week, I introduced you to my misadventures in appliqué, wherein I asked for your input because I just wasn’t finding a solution that I liked for this appliqué project that’s in the works.

Thank you all so much for your input! I was flooded with great ideas and suggestions, as well as some things to heed in the process. I appreciate that you took the time to help a poor gal in a quandary out.

I’ve been testing some of your suggestions and exploring a few ideas of my own. While I’m not in a Huge Hurry on this project, I’m trying to narrow down my approach as quickly as possible. Admittedly, I’d like to get this particular job done and off my plate for good!

A bunch of folks suggested turned appliqué, by sewing right sides of the fabric and interfacing together, slitting the interfacing, and turning the letter inside-out. This pulls the “seam” a little to the back and allows you to sew down the appliqué with pre-turned edges.

This is not really an option with these letter shapes and this fabric. The fabric is stiff and relatively heavy weight. And may parts of the letters – especially the serifs – are a bit narrow and fiddly. (The serifs run around 1/4″ wide.)

Many encouraged the use of an adhesive stabilizer, and some suggested an adhesive stabilizer, bonding the gold fabric to felt, cutting the letter, and applying.

Others suggested a similar approach, with the addition of machine sewing along the outline line for the letter, cutting beyond the outline, and then covering the narrow excess edge with trim.

And many suggested the use of fray check or a similar concoction (glue, even), to fix the edge fabric to prevent fraying while working on it and over time.

I’ve been playing with a combination of these approaches.

Here, I’ve bonded the gold fabric to a yellow wool felt, using lightweight Heat ‘n Bond.

On the cut piece in the photo above, I painted a very thin, controlled bit of Fray Check just along the edge of the fabric after cutting it out.

You can see that this makes a relative thick-looking appliqué.

When I sewed it onto the velvet, the thickness is not so noticeable. The edge gets pulled down into the velvet fabric, anyway, and it creates a pretty good edge.

In the photo directly above, please note that the edge of that particular fabric is not Fray Checked. On my next test, I’ll use the piece that has the Fray Checked edge to see if it makes a difference.

Over the edge of this test letter, I’m using Russia braid as a finishing trim.

I tried cord and didn’t really love it. I like the Russia braid for this because of its two-part, parallel corded core. You’ve got two fine cords there, parallel to each other, and “braided” over with a very very fine metal wire.

In my mind, there are two advantages to the Russia braid. (And please don’t look too closely at the sewing and such – this is a test. This is only a test…)

One advantage is that it is relatively easy to sew one half of the trim on the letter and the other half of the trim on the ground fabric, so that the braid is overlapping the edge quite nicely.

The other advantage is the finished look – it adds a beveled look to the edge of the letter, and I think it looks kind of neat. You can get a sense of the “bevel” even from far away, and that’s a good thing, because this is meant to be seen from a distance.

You can really see my sloppy stitching in this photo! LOL!

Anyway, on the right, there’s a slightly lighter version of the same Russia braid. I’m thinking about going with the lighter one. It’s not the same color as the gold fabric, so it adds just a touch of contrast, but not a super-obvious contrast.

I’ll test the lighter one on a sewn bit of letter, too, just to be sure which one I like better.

This photo might give you a better idea of the lighter gold braid.

There’s still a lot of testing and playing around to do. This is not my favorite part of this kind of project, because – like I said above – I’d like to get this whole thing over and done with. Testing ideas can be soooooooooooo frustratingly slow!

And What Else?

Well, we have other projects and work going on here at the studio. I’ll have a little Easter project idea for you soon. A quick and fun project!

Concerning the Modern needlework stand I reviewed here – many of you expressed interest and wrote in with your preferences. Regretfully, I can’t reply to every single email, but we did make a spread sheet, and we have ordered stands (the first batch is on the way!) based on your expressions of interest. Please hang tight! We’re not Amazon, and Velke Potoky isn’t a made-in-China factory spewing out sub-par products with little quality control. Good things come to those who wait, as my mother always said…

Although we once again sold out of Elisabetta Sforza’s new book on satin stitched monograms, never fear! We have more coming! About a quarter of our last shipment was damaged, so we ran a little short and sold out sooner than I had planned. But we’ll have more soon!

We still have a few copies left of The Handpicked Collection volume 4 – don’t wait too long on that one, especially if you have the first three and want to complete the set! You’ll find it here in the shop.

Have a swell Wednesday! It’s hump day… but why do I feel like I’m on the wrong side of the mound?!