I understand the concept of hiding the knots when doing hand stitching but if you are doing hand applique on the front of the quilt, how do you get the knots into the batting? - I'm still a beginner, can you tell?

I do all my applique before I sandwich the quilt so that's not an issue for me. But I suppose you can bury the knot away from where you are going to applique and bring the needle up at the point you want to start.

I also do it before quilting.

If I were adding applique to a quilt, I would form the knot under the edge of the applique, out of site and feed the needle into the batting area about 2 inches, then pull the needle out and cut the thread. All this under the extra layer of the applique fabric.

Hey, we're all new sometime! I hand applique before I sandwich also.

applique is done on the quilt top- before sandwiching and quilting- so you don't have to worry about it- your knots are on the back of the piece- will be inside when your top becomes a quilt--
burying the knots is when hand-quilting because you might be in the center of the quilt starting a line of stitching- you do not want the knot on the top of your quilt- you don't want it on the back of the quilt- you must bury it--
quilting and appliqueing are 2 different animals

I always do my applique before I quilt.