I am trying to teach myself applique and am having trouble with puckering. Is there magical settings to use? tension, etc.?
Very frustrating.

I hope to see answers to this on the 29th. I am taking a machine quilting class at my LQS

What kind of applique? Details, details!!

If it's machine applique, the most common cause of puckering is not stabilizing the background fabric.

Most people use some form of stabilizer underneath. I prefer to heavily starch background fabric with a 1:1 solution of Sta-Flo liquid laundry starch and water. I "paint" this onto the fabric with a large wall painting brush, toss the yardage in the dryer, then iron with steam. The fabric becomes fairly stiff and very stable. I cut out the background square larger than finished size in case there is any distortion from the applique, then trim to correct size afterwards.

Basically what happens when the background is not stabilized is that the background fabric tends to get stretched on the bias so that, by the time you get around to where you started, there is a little more background fabric than applique. That creates a pucker.

I should add that I do machine freezer paper applique, not fusible applique. I'm not sure if fusible will stick to starched background fabric; would have to test it first to make sure.

thanks for the explanation of why the pucker occurs. that makes perfect sense.

I am using Heat n Bond lite iron on adhesive. cotton fabrics. zig-zag stitch.

Thank You. I was kinda wondering if that could be the problem.

You may need to set your tension a little lower. What happens with fusible is the stitching pulls the background fabric up to the edge of the applique if it's fairly stiff. Do a test piece and see if it will iron flat when you're done.

Thank You! I will try that. The way you described the puckering is exactly what is happening.

I starch the background and it gives me no trouble.