I have an Appliqué Question or Problem-both?
 

Ian making a wall hanging that will be wrapped around and stapled to a 27 1/2 by 42 inch frame made from 1x3 inch white pine wood. I backed my letters with fusible fleece and the unicorns with 80/20 batting. There will be another layer of batting and muslin, then free motion quilting. I have used Best Press and also steam, but still have some small wrinkles. Will these disappear with the quilting and slight stretch as I fasten it to the frame? Is there something else I should try?[ATTACH=CONFIG]574814[/ATTACH]

I'm confused about the "fusible fleece." Did you mean fusible web? Fusible web on the back of the letters would help. Tear-away stabilizer on the back of the background fabric might also help. Maybe a thinner needle, like a 75/11 would help.

It sure looks like a fun, beautiful project.

They probably won't disappear. Sometimes you don't sweat the small stuff and to me, a few little wrinkles is small stuff on such a pretty wall hanging.

If you put anything puffy under your fabric and then embroider, you are probably going to get wrinkles. The only time I have used batting or fleece when embroidering was as a last step after the embroidery was done and I was going around a block, so I really haven't done what I think you did. I'm not sure of the proper methods and stabilization needed to puff the embroidery so that the center of it stands out.

This is a good little info article regarding stabilizing fabrics. There are many more out there on the internet.
http://www.embroiderthis.com/hofafor....7LS4s1O1.dpbs

This YouTube video shows how they puff baseball caps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bzas8Ak4gM

I agree with Barb. The only way to get rid of them would be to pull out the satin stitching & re-do using a stabilizer. I like tear-away stabilizer for satin stitched applique. I know others who use wash-away (water soluble) stabilizer or even a lightweight stabilizer that they leave in the piece.

Any time you have very dense stitching, a stabilizer is required. I do all my applique first before layering anything else on. Once the applique is done, if I want to do faux trapunto, I will put a water soluble thread in my machine (I like YLI), layer the high-loft batting under my top & carefully stitch around the shape of my applique. When finished, I trim the excess batting from around the shape & then layer my quilt. By quilting densely around the applique shapes & barely at all in them, it creates the illusion that the applique has been stuffed.

You could possibly make the wrinkles a bit less obvious by using denser quilting, but I would maybe try it in a small section first to see if it will accomplish what you're hoping. It will not completely get rid of the wrinkles, but it might help some.

So sorry to see you going through this. I learned this lesson the hard way, too.

try putting a towel under and iron from the back side. sometimes, that helps get rid of the wrinkles.

Agreeing with Barb and Bree but want to add one thing. When doing satin stitch applique, besides using some form of stabilizer, loosening your upper tension a bit helps too. Allowing a bit of the upper thread to be pulled to the back helps keep the fabric from pulling like that.

Cari

Did you use a stabilizer underneath the background fabric? If not, that is likely the cause of the puckers. It's not enough to stabilize the appliqués; it is necessary to also stabilize the background. Most people use stabilizer; I prefer to heavily starch the background fabric. The puckers are usually caused by the background fabric stretching or distorting while sewing. I like lynnie's suggestion to iron from the back over a towel. However, if the background stretched while sewing, the puckers are essentially sewn in. I have come to consider minor things like these learning experiences that simply add to the charm of handwork.

Thanks for all the great help, I backed the letters with fusible fleece before the final cutting, but I didn't think to stabilize the fabric I was appliquing them to - but things turned out better than I hoped! Here's the finished product. Well I've tried everything, can't get the picture on my iPhone 7+ to load. It's after 2 am gotta go to bed! But it did turn out I'm pleased with it.

I do a lot of these, but I do not quilt them. I do the applique then stretch them over canvas frames. If I have any wrinkles I fuse it to something like soft and stable (cut to fit the top of the canvas) being sure to "fuse away" any problems before stretching and stapling.

I appliqué a lot and use heat and bond lite and I stitch a blanket stitch. The satin stitch might be too tight.