Couching is a method of sewing 3-dimensional “stuff” (cord, braid, strings of beads or sequins, etc.) to fabric by zigzagging over it. It allows you to sew down things that can’t be sewn through. 🙂
You do need a special foot for couching. I the video I show you the one I use with my Bernina, and point out the features you need to look for when you’re buying one for your machine. They’re usually pretty inexpensive and it’s a nice foot to add if you do any decorative stitching.
You could use it to add raised whiskers on cats, raised stripes on a snake, pearly snow on the ground, and lots more. I can’t wait to see what you do with it!
Whoa! That monster is silver! Shiny, metallic silver!
When I want a bright, metallic look to my applique, I always grab some tissue lamé.
This surprises a lot of people, because tissue lamé is a notoriously fragile fabric and kind of a pain to work with. But I have tricks!
One of the main problems with it is that the edges fray like crazy.
Seriously. All you have to do is look at it and it does this.
But you can reinforce the fabric with fusible interfacing and it makes it much stronger and controls the fraying. Once the interfacing is applied you can treat it just like any other fabric.
Awesome!
Except that some tissue lamés melt at the temperatures required to melt the fusible adhesive on the interfacing. But you can use a press cloth – just like you do for the satin I talked about in this post.
Here’s a piece all ready to cut and applique.
And here are the steps I went through to get to this point.
Lay the tissue lamé out on your ironing board.
Layer a piece of fusible interfacing over the lamé. I use Pellon light weight interfacing.
Layer a press cloth over that and press, following the instructions on the interfacing for time and steam/no steam.
Rough cut your paper-backed fusible adhesive pieces and layer them over the interfacing. Cover that with a press cloth and fuse according to the fusible adhesive instructions.
Now you’re ready to cut out the pieces and fuse them to your applique – again keeping a press cloth between the metallic lamé and your iron.
Here’s a block where I used those hexies for shiny windows.
I just stitched around the edges as usual. The combination of fusible interfacing and fusible adhesive keeps the edges from fraying in every lamé I’ve tested – but the fiber content can vary quite a bit so I recommend testing before you use it for a full size quilt that you’re planning to wash a lot.
A little pop of metallic shininess can add so much to a lot of quilts. And tissue lamé comes in lots of fun colors!
Don’t be afraid to explore the fabric store beyond the quilting cottons section! A lot of those fabrics can be used in applique with just a little special handling. 🙂
Here are links to all the posts about choosing fabric.
Satin applique is just perfect for getting shiny smooooth things like this blue dragon.
Usually when I use satin in a quilt I use it for soft 3D pieces – like the lining on these fun, floppy ears in my Mix & Match Monsters quilt.
But you can do satin applique too – even if you use fusible adhesive!
Like fleece – the big problem is heat. The heat required to melt your fusible adhesive will melt most satins too.
The answer is simple.
Use a press cloth!
A press cloth isn’t anything fancy, and it isn’t anything you need to buy. It’s just a piece of regular woven cotton that you put between the potentially melty thing you’re ironing and your iron.
That fall tree in the top photo is satin. Here’s how I did it.
Fuse your paper-backed adhesive to the back of the satin, just like you would with any fabric except. . .
. . . top it all with a press cloth before you fuse.
Use the press cloth again when you fuse the tree top (or whatever) to your block.
After that just stitch around the edges as usual. The fusible adhesive keeps the edges from fraying in every satin applique I’ve tested – but the content of satins can really vary so you might want to make up a quick sample yourself and test it before you use it for a full size quilt that you’re planning to wash a lot.
Wouldn’t it be super cute to make all the cars and trucks in the Beep Beep quilt out of satin, so they’re shiny and smooth like real cars?
Have some fun adding satin applique to your next quilt project!
Here are links to all the posts about choosing fabric.
But you can also use glue stick to hold the fleece itself in place on a quilt block!
You can use any glue stick made specifically for fabric. It’ll hold really well (and make things kind of stiff) but it washes out easily so your finished quilt is cuddly and soft.
That means you do need to stitch the edges down permanently!
If you look at that blue bird up there you can see I used a fairly wide and open zigzag stitch around the edges. That’s one option.
Another option is just to use a simple straight stitch, like I do around all my other applique pieces. You can see that option on the snowy ground in this Shiny Happy Houses quilt block.
I loaded up large images for both of these – so you can click on them to see them closer. The zigzag stitching leaves a slightly crisper edge, where the straight stitch is a softer, fluffier edge. If you decide to applique with fleece, just choose the edge treatment that works best for your project!
Both of my examples are using cuddle fleece, but this method also works well for polar fleece. Just make sure to get the no-pill kind!
I’d love to see some fluffy, fleecy cats and dogs!
Here are links to all the posts about choosing fabric.
There are two kinds of applique that rely on the print of the fabric you’re using – fussy cutting and broderie perse.
A lot of you have probably done fussy cutting without even realizing it has a name. It’s when you carefully position your applique template to incorporate images printed on the fabric.
I did it on this Paper Doll quilt block to make sure the top T.A.R.D.I.S. was centered on the V-neck and the bottom ones were lined up with the hem.
I also did it on this haunted house quilt block, to make sure there was a bat flying in the center of each window, and the skull was centered on the door.
Fussy cutting is easy. It just means paying attention when you position your templates. You can hold your fabric and templates up to a window so you can see really well where your outlines are falling.
Broderie perse is similar, in that it uses motifs printed on the fabric. But with broderie perse – the images ARE the templates. You’re cutting out the images on one fabric and appliqueing them to another. It’s traditionally done with flowers – but you can do it with anything you like!
Heres how I used broderie perse to add a couple of cute trick-or-treaters to one of my Shiny Happy Houses quilt blocks – designed especially for Halloween.
You have to start with adorable fabric. I’m using two fabrics from Dear Stella that are designed to work together.
Bundle Me Up is the fabric with the sweet animals faces, hands, and feet – but no bodies. Costume Party is the fabric with all the fun costumes for those critters to wear. So clever!
Roughly cut out the image you want (like the fox in this picture). Back it with fusible adhesive, and then cut the image out neatly (like the dress and crown).
The dress in this example already has little slippers attached, so when I cut out the fox neatly I decided to cut away the lower part of the body. It would have been hidden anyway and this makes assembly easier – I don’t have to line things up as perfectly.
I’m such a lazypants. 🙂
After that it’s applique as usual.
Position the critter first, then the costume and fuse it down with everything else in your block.
I stitched around all my pieces in simple black thread for a nice cartoony look. I added a couple of pumpkin buttons for their trick or treat pails, and – of course – some spider buttons on all that magnificent glow-in-the-dark spiderwebbing.
Have fun with broderie perse! It will make you look at your fabrics a whole different way. 🙂
Here are links to all the posts showing how to applique with fusible adhesive – my favorite method. It’s fast and easy and (with the right materials) it holds up beautifully to rough use and repeated washing.
It’s puffy and fat – like traditional trapunto applique.
You can read more about traditional trapunto here. It’s. . . a lot of work. Seriously. A lot.
So I didn’t use the (crazy labor-intensive) traditional trapunto technique. I used a fun and easy fake trapunto applique technique I developed to give the monsters in this quilt googly eyes, like this. . .
So much fun!
(It’s the button pupils dimpling the eyes in that really make them extra cute.)
Here’s the video tutorial showing how to do it.
You can use this technique for clouds and trees, like I show in the video, but also for any relatively simple shape. Just choose something big enough to be able to turn it right side out after sewing, with an outline that’s primarily gentle curves or wide points.
You can also use this technique without the puffy stuffing. It’s not really trapunto applique anymore, but it’s a great way to get easy turned edges for applique into shaggy or fluffy fabric – like cuddle fleece.
Here are links to all the posts showing how to applique with fusible adhesive – my favorite method. It’s fast and easy and (with the right materials) it holds up beautifully to rough use and repeated washing.
I’ve been sharing little peeks of what to expect from the new Craftsy class on Facebook and Instagram and then gathering them all up every week here on the blog. There are so many fun things in this one class!
You can read the first round up here. Googly eyes, scrappy pieced backgrounds, silly eyelids, a kajillion uses for a triangle – it’s all there. 🙂
This week we started with silly hair.
I mean, seriously. Those curls have elastic inside so they spring back when you pull on them. How silly is that?
And then I showed how one simple body shape can look totally different, depending on the other bits you add.
My favorite is the one with the purple toenails. 🙂
More fun 3D parts with these teeth.
So easy!
And then I went really crazy with the 3D additions with these floppy, satin-lined ears. . .
Enter the giveaway for a free spot here. Even if you don’t win – just by entering you’ll be notified when the class goes live (so soon!) and you’ll get a special discount coupon.
When I made the first cat quilt for my daughter Jo, she asked for cuddle fleece on the back. Until then I had only used it for stuffed animals, but she thought it would make an exceptionally cuddly quilt.
She was right.
After sleeping under it the first night she came to me and very seriously said, “Mommy. You should never use anything else on the back of your quilts.”
She was right again. 🙂
Wonderfully – I’ve found that it’s no harder to work with than a woven fabric on the back!
Note – I’ve heard from a few people with Brother machines that they do NOT like pulling the cuddle fleece through. We think it might be that the Brother feed dogs are less “grabby” than other manufacturers? Just be aware – if you have a Brother machine you may need to give it some extra help to get it to move through the machine.
A lot of people have asked me whether they have to do anything special to use cuddle fleece on the back of their quilts.
Do they need to use a special needle?
Do they needle to use a particular thread?
Do they have to use a walking foot?
Can I show actually doing some of the quilting?
Can I show what it looks like from the back?
I can show you all of that!
I’ve made a bunch of these now and I’ve found that I don’t really need to treat it any different from using a woven fabric background. In fact – I think it’s even less likely to get tiny folds or puckers in it. 🙂
A note about the fluff. . .
By the time I get to the backing/quilting/binding step of a project I’m always super excited to finish – and I don’t take the time to tumble the backing in the dryer to get rid of the fluff on those cut edges. 😛 If you’re more patient than me. . .
Cut the backing to size
Toss it in the dryer on air dry for 15-20 minutes. That will pull almost all of the fuzz off the edges and catch it in the lint trap.
Proceed as normal – baste, quilt and bind wearing whatever you want and not worrying about getting too messy. 🙂
Cuddle fleece makes an extra cuddly quilt with (in my opinion) the perfect weight. And it washes and wears beautifully!
Here are all my posts about layering and basting your quilt, and the final round of quilting.
Here are all my posts about hand quilting and Big Stitch quilting. I don’t use these techniques with fusible applique or Quilt As You Go, but I LOVE using Big Stitch Quilting with my cheater fabric.
I think a lot of the questions come from people who just can’t believe how easy it is. Like, there’s this nagging feeling that they must be missing an important, fussy step. For example – trimming the excess batting out of all the seam allowances. I can’t imagine anything more tedious or less fun and I’ve had several people ask if they have to do that. *shudders at the thought*
It really is dead simple and super easy. Have fun with it!
