I’ve got a new addiction making these skirts following the fab tutorial over at Dana Made It . They really are the simplest skirt ever and take about 20-30 mins to knock up. My daughter’s wardrobe is being over taken by them.

So my latest *need* was to use up some dark indigo chambray I’ve had for ages and I figured it’d need a bit of prettying up to save it from being b.o.r.i.n.g. so I thought I’d pop a little machine appliqué on it as I couldn’t be bothered to set my machine up for embroidery I thought it would be nice so I figured I might as well pop a little tutorial up as it’s so easy to do and will spice up any make!

You will need

Some Bondaweb which is available here

Fabric scraps

A pencil

Scissors

An iron

STEP ONE: Decide what it is that you’d like to appliqué and find a picture you can trace around. Simple is the the key here and will give you the best results. Bear in mind that you are going to have to sew around the outline of whatever you choose. I decided I wanted a birdie so I typed in “bird appliqué templates” in to Google images and I found this one which seemed to fit the bill.

Watch the birdie!

STEP TWO : Trace around your template on to the Bondaweb. Trace on to the smooth side of the Bondaweb and trace each part of your design separately – see here I’ve traded the bird body, the wing and the beak. Make sure you cut out about 1/4 inch around your outline.

STEP THREE: Iron on to your fabric, textured side down

STEP FOUR: Cut out your applique along your pencil line and you will have come nice crisp fabric shapes

STEP FIVE: Iron on to your fabric. I’m not gonna lie to you ….This is the fiddliest bit of the process, I’d even go as far as to says it’s a PITA. Bondaweb has a paper side which needs to be removed before it will bond to your fabric so you need to peel off the paper from the back of your shapes. I find the best way to get it off is to run  finger nail down an edge of your shape, or sometimes I fold it in half and tear in the middle of the paper. (If anybody has any tips for removing the paper I’m all ears!) Somebody helpfully has suggested to score with a pin – sounds genius and thank you!

Once you’ve removed the paper then you can iron your appliqué pieces on to your fabric. Don’t forget to do them in the right order from the bottom layer up if some parts of your appliqué are underneath others.

STEP SIX: Stitch your appliqué to your fabric. Start at one corner and slowly follow the outline of your appliqué piece. You can get creative with the stitch you use, I chose this one on my machine, it’s like a blanket stitch, I like that effect, but you could use a zig zag or a straight stitch. Play around with the finishes and see what works for you. If you choose a contrasting thread colour your stitching will be more visible. I added legs and an eye by using a tight zig zag stitch. Voila! You have a machine appliqué on your garment, isn’t it pretty?