nanac

I am going to be making some applique pieces by sewing interfacing to the right side of the fabric piece, cutting a slit, and turning it inside out. Should I sew the parts together on the fabric side, or the interfacing side. ?

aashley333

I would sew them with the interfacing on topside because the feed dog might chew it up. If I had to have the interfacing on the bottom side, I would add newspaper between feed dog and interfacing. I have not appliqued this way before. Please post pix!

Iceblossom

I'm doing this right now. I have my focus fabric right side up, the interfacing is wrong side down with the shapes drawn on the back. So I sewing through the interfacing looking at the right side of my focus fabric.

I'm using a tiny stitch to follow my desired shape. When I grade and trim my seam and fix my seam, the interfacing will be down to position the focus fabric to the background, leaving a bit of puff to the applique. Quite often I do lightly stuff but not this time, but I still like that puff better than then squished look for this project. I press and then buttonhole stitch around the entire applique.

Barb in Louisiana

A small tip from my brief experience with this type applique. If you cut a small slit, think 1/4" to 3/8" in the middle of the interfacing before you sew them together, you won't have to worry as much about cutting into your good fabric when you are ready to cut the larger slit.

juliasb

I too sew fabric side down for my applique or I sew them by hand. Right now I am working on some sunbonnet sues and doing t hem by hand this time around and am just having fun doing this one no rush just for fun.

Iceblossom

Barb, sometimes it is the simple stuff that escapes us... great tip on starting the slit first! I already have my stack of squares with the shapes drawn, and there is always that "be on guard" moment as I snip now.

About the slits on the back, some people make huge slits side to side, I'm more into just a couple lines radiating into the problem areas. Some people recommend then going back over the slits and stitching them down, I don't like the thread caught into the interfacing that way, but in a complicated shape it could be the way to go, especially if you were then trimming out the excess fabric.

mermaid

Good tip! I've done 2 applique quilts this way. -E. Burns' "Applique in a day" and I used the light wt. fusible interfacing. I drew the pattern parts on the interfacing, fusible side against right side of fabric, sewed around, cut, and turned. I then lightly pressed to background block and (in my case) hand appliqued. I later did a 'cats' quilt using this method, but used the machine applique stitch. This is easy method for quick applique.