For appliques I usually trace the pattern on the back side of pattern on heat & bond light weight on the paper side. Then iron to the wrong side of fabric. Cut out. Then remove paper and iron in place. Then I use the blanket stitch and make it small stitches. This way you are outlining the piece and just taking little nips of the edge of the fabric. I use thread to match the background of the fabric being used.
-------------------------------------------------
This is what I'm doing with my ice cream kid's quilt. Except to save time I simply iron on the bonding material to a length of fabric, draw around all the patterns and get as many as possible from that amount of material. Cut out, remove paper and iron on backing. I use a small zig zag and sew slowly with pattern matched colored thread. I hope this will hold up for many years, since I have seen lots of them that are very, very old, probably before heat sealed iron ons. And yes, this does have the disadvantage of being time consuming, changing all the top colors, but i like it and probably won't change my habits.