Appliqued table topper
 

When you are doing applique on a table topper or quilt and you want to do fancy stitch sewing on the applique, do you stitch thru the top, batting and backing or do you stitch thru just the top and then do your extra quilting thru
the 3 pieces of fabric afterwards? This piece I am doing has a lot of appliqued pieces. Thanks

I did the applique first on the top then quilted.

if you are adding binding and not turning, you can stitch through all three layers. or you can just stitch through the batting and top, then add backing and binding if you don't want all the applique stitches showing through. either way is fine.

I do the fancy stitches on the top layer of fabric. You can either hand stitch or machine stitch the quilting around the applique later.

it is alot easier to stitch appliques- especially when many pieces are involved- first- then layer & quilt as desired. often when using decorative stitches it is more difficult to avoid puckers and tension problems when you have the extra thickness of batting/backing. if you want to give it a try i would put together a small practice piece & try it out first before working on the real thing---decorative stitches are much more difficult to remove if you don't like how it comes out- so practice first - that way you can make sure your tension is right & you are not getting puckers

I do the applique before quilting.

I do the same as Misdixie.

Many of the decorative stitches aren't that attractive from the reverse side so I guess it depends on how you want the back to look as well. I usually do the stitching before I sandwich the quilt, my machine does not do fancy stitches properly with the walking foot on, and I prefer to quilt with it on.

I thought the walking foot was for straight stich only.

If you're interested in showing your quilt: zigzag stitching isn't acceptable on the back of the quilt for the quilting stitch. So all decorative stitches must be done before attaching the back. Decorative stitching can be done on the top and batting because the batt acts as a stabilizer. The batt can cause heavy lint in the machine. Heavy stitching can flatten the batting. All heavy stitching and some decorative stitching can distort the shape of the top, so a stabilizer may be necessary; test before working on the top.