Welcome back to the second installment of my wool appliqué series. Last week I covered templates and preparing the background, which included some of the tools needed. If you missed it, find the post here: Welcome to Wool Appliqué – Part 1. This week, I will cover fusing the wool and laying out the design on the background. I will share tips on how to do this so you are ready to stitch in no time. So, let’s get started!

Creating the Wool Shapes

This is where you get to use the fusible shapes you cut out last week to create your wool appliqués. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions on the fusible web brand you chose to fuse the shapes to the wool using your iron.

Notice how I have placed the fusible templates for the flower up in the corner of the piece of wool. That is how I make sure I am not creating any waste. Wool is expensive so you want to have as little waste as possible.

Tip! Wool can be used on either side, however one side of your piece of wool may be prettier than the other, especially if you have a piece of hand dyed wool. Choose the side you like and iron the fusible shape to the other side.

Once the pieces are fused, I cut away all the usable wool and put that back in my stash. I actually use a small serrated scissors that is used only for this task.

Now is the time you use the drawn lines to cut out the shapes. This is why we cut out the fusible shapes outside the lines last week, so our final wool appliqués look like the actual flower. It’s easier to cut along lines now than trying to follow the outside of the shape, if there were no lines.

Once the shapes are cut out, you can peel off the paper backing from the back of the wool shape and now it’s ready for the layout and stitching! Note the shiny side in the last photo; that is the fusible side. Don’t forget to pull off the paper! Trust me… I’ve done that before.

Design Layout

Now that you have all the appliqué shapes cut out from the wool, it’s time to layout the design. We will now use those lines you drew or folded into your background last week. 

Stems: If your appliqué motif has stems, those are usually laid out first and glued in place. Stems for these projects are commonly as thin as 1/4″ so I do not use templates and fusible. I simply cut strips for the stems from a piece of wool, lay them out and use a small amount of glue to secure.

Tip! Use the other motif pieces as a guide for getting your stems in the correct position.

As you can see from the above photos, I am using the folds in the background, the flower pot and one of the flowers as guides to laying out my stems. Once I have them in the right place, I glue the stems so they do not move when I fuse the rest of the design. My favorite glue to use is Roxanne’s Glue Baste-it.

Layout & Fuse

Now it’s time to layout the rest of the design and fuse it in place. Here’s the design all laid out:

Now that it’s all set in place, it’s time to fuse. I use a method of steaming without putting water in the iron. I carefully place a towel over the whole block, spray it with water from a spray bottle and then press the iron down in sections on top of the towel.

Use a white towel with no dyes that can potentially transfer onto your project. When the fusing is done, carefully lift the towel starting at the top checking to see if everything is fused securely. Repeat the spray and press step as long as it takes to fuse everything down.

Here’s my mini video tutorial that covers these steps to give you a better understanding, especially of the fusing process.

So that’s it for part 2 of the series. Come back on January 3rd for the final installment where I cover stitching. I’ll have some tips & tricks for that. Leave a comment or ask any questions you have below and be entered into the drawing for the wool appliqué prize package.

The drawing will be on Monday, January 10th so you have lots of time to enter! See you for the final installment next week.**We have a winner! Congrats, Wendy!***

Happy Stitching!
Deanne

Hi! Welcome to my 3 part series on wool appliqué. Starting today, and over the two weeks following, I will share the steps I take when working on a wool appliqué project. I will share my tips and advice so you can take on wool appliqué with new confidence. Of course my advice and tips are not the ultimate word on wool appliqué, this is just how I teach it. I have also filmed a 3 part mini video tutorial series that I will share along with these posts. I know many people are visual learners so I think the videos will help in that area. Feel free to share your comments and tips below!

Getting Started

Throughout the series, I will highlight the tools that are needed for wool appliqué. These are things I find essential. Of course, these are not all the tools out there used for wool appliqué. You may find others available as you get more into wool appliqué that you find helpful and essential.

First, you need the pattern template page, some card stock, scissors for cutting paper and a regular or mechanical pencil.

You can either make a copy of the template page directly onto the cardstock, if your printer will do that, or you can trace the shapes from the pattern page and then glue them to the card stock. I like to keep the pattern intact in case I want to use it later. Either way, this makes your templates reinforced for repeated use.

Cut the templates from the card stock using the scissors. You can see that the templates are marked with how many of the shapes are needed and from what color wool. Once you have used them, you can place them in a bag and attach the it to the pattern for future use. 

My next essential tool is fusible web. My favorite brand is Heat n’ Bond Featherlight. I find that it is the right weight and does not add any stiffness to my wool appliqués.

There are other fusibles on the market and if you like, feel free to experiment and find the one you like the best.

Now it’s time to trace the templates onto the fusible using your regular or mechanical pencil. Trace them onto the paper side of the fusible web. If you have any templates that are not symmetrical, you need to reverse that template before tracing since the fusible will be fused onto the back side of the wool. For this example, that is the flower pot.

Since I want the handle to face left on my project, I need to trace the pot template onto the fusible with the handle facing right as shown above.

When tracing the shapes, make sure to leave enough space to cut them out outside the drawn lines by a bit. I don’t like to cut the fusible shapes out right on the line because I use the line later when cutting the wool pieces out. This assures me that I don’t lose any of the shape of the motif. See photos below:

However if you have templates, like the leaves in the center photo, that will be from the same piece of wool, you can trace them very close together. It’s a good idea to do this because wool is expensive and you want as little waste as possible.

Once you have them all cut out and ready to go, it’s time to prepare the background before we move on to fusing wool and laying out the design, which will be in part 2 next week.

Preparing the Background

Step 1: To get the background ready for the design and stitching, I have a few steps to prepare it. First, I like to reinforce the edges of the block with Fray Check.

Doing this prevents fraying while handling the block as you stitch. If your fabric frays a lot, you could lose seam allowance and your block will no longer measure the size it should. Now this is an optional step, but I recommend it highly.

Step 2: The next step in preparing the background is defining your stitching space. I like to measure in 1/2″ from all sides and draw a line. The space inside those lines is where the design will be laid out and stitched.

By defining the space ahead of time, you won’t accidently stitch some of your design into the seam allowance where it will be cut off when you sew the blocks together. I do 1/2″ on all sides so it keeps the design 1/4″ away from the seam allowance.

Step 3: Finally, I like to draw lines or make fold lines in the background to act as a guide for laying out my appliqué motif.

The photos above show how I fold and crease my background. I also use the fabric marking pencil I used to mark the lines on the outside of the background to place a “dot” in the center of the block as a point of reference. If you don’t want to fold and do creases, use a ruler and the fabric marking pencil and lightly draw those quadrant lines.

Here is my mini video tutorial covering what I talked about this week:

So that’s it for this week! Come back next week on December 27th for part 2.

Ask me questions or leave comments below and you will be entered into a drawing for a wool appliqué gift pack that includes my pattern, Snugg-let Sweet Summer, Roxanne’s small glue, a pack of chenille needles and a ball of Valdani Perle cotton.

The drawing will be on Monday, January 10th at the end of the 3 part series! **We have a winner! Congrats, Wendy!***

Happy Stitching!
Deanne