Thanks for the tips so far. No, I have not starched my fabric at all. I know it is the selvage because on the backing layer the selvage hasn't been cut off yet. I did use paper when I did the applique, and that helped a lot. Didn't even occur to me you could do that with seams as well. I pinned the layers together with safety pins. I'm going to try out all your suggestions, and hopefully that'll solve the problem. Thank you!