Freezer Paper Appliqué - Having trouble detaching the template from the fabric
 

I made a template out of freezer paper, ironed it to the wrong side of some fabric, cut the fabric out a little larger than the template, and then used starch to fold the fabric over the template. The problem is that I’m finding it difficult to remove the template. If I don’t let the starch dry, the fabric doesn’t keep its shape. If I do let the starch dry, it’s solidly gluing the fabric to the freezer paper. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks, Tartan, I've tried it using the straight pin to loosen it and that does help. I'm going to keep going with it to complete the block and see if I can work on my technique. The smaller pieces and places where it's very convex and the fabric overlaps a lot are the places where I'm having the most difficulty. Not sure why I expected it to be easy!

I never starched my pc's so never had a problem removing the paper. I also used a dry iron. No steam

This technique is how I started out doing applique and I quickly became frustrated for this reason, plus my freezer paper would get too soggy. So I switched to Templar, which is a heat-resistant plastic. Works great!

We had this technique demo'd at guild last night. The presenter said to make sure when you paint the starch, take care not to paint the freezer paper... just for the very reason you are having difficulty. She preferred Magic Sizing instead of starch.

I agree important not to let freezer paper get soggy - does help to use thicker freezer paper sold for appliqué or double or triple layers of freezer paper. Nevertheless I do prefer using Templar - worth the investment. Love this prepared edge method. Check out some of the YouTube videos.

Thanks for the suggestion, mic-pa. I’ve actually tried that, but I don’t seem to be able to iron it around the templates without burning my fingers. I came across the idea to use starch and thought that would fix that problem (which it did), but it’s created its own problem with removing the template. I’m still glad I tried it out, since you never know when you’ll find something that works better.

Yep, the freezer paper gets too soggy to reuse easily. I was thinking that it would work better if both sides were plastic and I tried a piece with the freezer paper facing the other way (gluing it to the fabric instead of ironing it on) and it did come off more easily but the overall process still didn’t work as well as I would like. I think the idea (from Peckish and junegerbracht— thanks to you both) of the plastic templates would work well for me for when I have a shape that I want to make multiple times. I’ll try that out the next time I have something that repeats. Thanks!

I am probably using more starch than I’m supposed to. I think it is soaking through the fabric, which is what’s making it stick. And let’s not even begin to talk about all of it sticking to my fingers. I’ve got more pieces for this block to do and I’m going to keep going with the freezer paper, seeing if I can make it work. Thanks for the help, I’ll see if I can do it without getting the starch everywhere.