Hand Appliqué Tutorial – Part 1

Hi! Welcome back! I’m glad you’ve decided to go on this needle-turn hand appliqué journey. Whether you are a beginner or experienced, I hope the instructions and tips I provide are the spark you need to create a beautiful appliqué quilt! 

Like I said last in last week’s post, this will be a 3 part series and there are some mini video tutorials that I will post each week that support the information I provide. I also said we would be working on a fun block design that you can use at the end to make a pillow, small table topper, or make more of the blocks and make a larger quilt. Here’s the block we will be making:

I created a class handout that gives basic instructions and includes the templates for this block. Click here for the instructions: Bloom Block. So, let’s get started!

Supplies and Preparation

I do all my fabric appliqué by hand so that’s what I am going to cover in this tutorial. However, many of my tips are helpful if you decide to do machine appliqué. The templates definitely can be used for either hand or machine appliqué. If you are interested in learning machine appliqué, do a Google search or a search on YouTube because there are many accomplished instructors for this method.

On to supplies… these are my favorite supplies. Other hand-appliqué instructors may have other preferences. Feel free to try all of the recommendations out to see what fits best for you.

Needles: These are an essential tool for hand appliqué. Finding the right needle for you is important. These are my favorite brand, John James Gold ‘n Glide:

These needles come in various lengths. The higher the number, the shorter the needle. I like size 9 because I feel it’s the right length for me. Test different size needles to see which length fits you best.  I’ve also found that this brand of needle glides easier through all types of fabric, including batiks. This is something you need to consider. If you have trouble getting your needle to go through the edge of your appliqué because you are not using a good needle, that will make appliqué process more frustrating.

Also, change your needle often if you appliqué a lot. Needles will bend out of shape and also become dull with usage. A good rule of thumb is to use a new needle every time you start a new project. Another piece of advice is change your needle for every 10 hours of use, which could happen if you are working on a large project.

Threads: This is actually where a lot of designers have different advice. My favorite thread to use is a 100% cotton thread. Here’s some of the threads I use:

I like Mettler brand 50 wt, 100% cotton with a silk finish. The silk finish helps it to glide through the fabric easier and there are a lot of different colors if you like to match your threads to the color of each appliqué piece. Some people doing appliqué prefer to use silk thread but I find those to be too thin for my liking. We’ll talk about color matching in a later post.

Other Tools: Here are two other items I can’t live without. Roxanne’s Glue Baste-it and Sewline brand marking pencils.

I love this glue because it replaced the pins I needed to secure my appliqué pieces. I’ve been doing hand appliqué for almost 30 years and have had many finger sticks from appliqué pins over those years. As for the Sewline marking pencil, this is a mechanical type pencil with chalk lead. The lead comes in a variety of colors (white, pink, green, and yellow) so the markings show up on all colors of fabric. It’s erasable and completely disappears with a bit of water on a Q-tip. The glue is also water soluble so the Q-tip trick will work to get rid of any glue residue that ends up on your background fabric.

Good Lighting: Finally, good lighting is essential when you are doing hand appliqué. If you want to keep your stitches as small as possible so they are almost invisible, you need to have good light to see and, in some cases, a magnifier on that light. I have a desk top light and a floor light, for when I am sewing in my TV chair.

Other items like scissors (both for fabric and paper) for working with templates and appliqué pieces and rulers for positioning appliqués come in handy.

Let’s Begin!

Templates: The first thing to learn about when beginning to appliqué is the templates: what they are and how to work with them. Templates are what you use to create the individual pieces of an appliqué motif.

Some patterns may come with already prepared, die-cut templates but most patterns will have the templates printed on the pattern pages (left photo, below) for you. These are some of the templates from the Bloom Block pattern we will be working on.

I recommend copying the pages onto card stock and cutting out the templates to make them sturdier. That’s what I did with the templates on the right, below. I you don’t have a way to copy them directly to card stock, you can glue the paper page to a piece of card stock and then cut out the shapes.

This makes the templates more sturdy so when you are tracing the shapes onto the fabric, the templates don’t lose their shape from repeated use. You can also store the reusable templates in the pattern bag with the pattern for when you want to make the project again.

Tracing: The next step is to trace your shapes onto the fabric designated for the appliqué piece, using the templates. For needle-turn appliqué, the templates are traced on the right side of the fabric. Most templates are usually ready to use and at 100% , as they are in all my patterns, but be sure to check the other appliqué patterns you decide to do to make sure those templates are.

Some patterns will tell you to also trace a template “reversed” which just means to flip it over and trace some that way. This usually happens with non-symmetrical shapes or shapes that are used both ways.

My example below shows the method I use. Trace around the template and leave at least 1/2″ between tracings if you are tracing several of the same shape on the same piece of fabric. For needle-turn appliqué, you need this space to cut out the shapes with enough fabric to turn under while stitching, as opposed to machine appliqué technique that requires no seam allowance for turn-under.

Preparing the Appliqué for Stitching: Next step after tracing is to cut out the shapes and prepare them for stitching to the quilt block or top.

Cut the shapes out a scant 1/4″ outside the drawn line. This creates the seam allowance that is turned under when stitching. Then, use your scissors to make clips into the seam allowance up to, but not over, the drawn line (last photo). 

The clips in the seam allowance make it easier to turn under the seam in sections to help keep the original shape of the appliqué piece. The curvier an area of the appliqué piece, the closer together your clips should be and there should be more clips than you would have on a straight side.

That’s it for this week! Your homework is to follow the steps in this blog post so you are ready for next week when we work on preparing the background and laying out the motif. We’ll also do some stitching.

Meanwhile, here is the mini video tutorial covering what I talked about today.

Leave a comment or ask a question below and you will be entered into a drawing for my appliqué gift pack!

The drawing will be on Monday, August 19th.***We have a winner! Congrats, Karen Addleman!***

See you next week for the second installment!

Happy Quilting, 
Deanne