March is “Try a New Technique” Month

The current Island Batik Ambassadors are each trying a new technique of their own choosing this month. So for my project, I have decided to have a go at “invisible machine appliqué”. No, not appliqué done on invisible machines, silly! 🙂 Appliqué done by machine in a way that the machine stitches are “invisible”. To try to emulate the look of hand appliqué, but faster. My intention is to make myself a dust cover for my Sweet 16 quilting machine, and to decorate said cover with some simple invisible machine appliqué. I have started my machine cover, but have paused it to do some experimenting. I am playing with the invisible machine appliqué technique to develop a process that works for me. Here’s what I’ve discovered so far……

The Backstory

As I mentioned in my last post, I saw a demonstration of an invisible machine appliqué technique at a state quilt guild meeting late last year, which piqued my interest. And then I found a relevant lesson series at Generation Quilt Patterns. I have based my experimentation on the information in the latter, and can recommend these lessons as further reading if you’d like to have a go at invisible machine appliqué too.

Also please note, this post contains affiliate links.  I am proud to show you the tools that I use. If you purchase a product through an affiliate link it will not cost you any extra but I may earn a small commission for the referral.

Supplies

For this project the main supplies you will need are a base fabric, your appliqué fabric, some batting (whatever you normally use),  invisible thread, an acid-free washable glue stick, washable liquid glue, water soluble iron-on stabiliser and a bamboo skewer.

In more detail:

• Fabric: I used batiks from my stash for this experiment because my machine cover is going to be made from the Blue Moon batik collection from Island Batik. I thought it best to use similar scrap fabrics for my experiments as my end project.
• Invisible thread (also known as monofilament thread): I have used Sulky Polyester thread in clear (for light fabrics) and smokey (on dark fabrics) for many years.  I used this again today because it’s what I own. If I get heavily into this technique I will likely experiment further with other monofilament threads. 

• Glue stick: I am trying out an acid-free washable glue stick by Bostik. I chose this one because it is available at my local supermarket. I know that some people use especially formulated quilting glue sticks. My experience is that these are highly priced, smell nice but work less well than glue sticks made for general purpose. Just saying. The general purpose glue stick of choice for this technique appears to be Elmer’s, but there are very few places in Adelaide that sell Elmer’s and I am not traipsing all over town for a glue stick!

• Liquid washable glue: Elmer’s School Glue is now available in my supermarket and I use it for all sorts of things quilty, so this was a no-brainer.

• Water soluble, iron-on stabiliser: For my project I am using Polyfuse made by Victorian Textiles. This product is described by the manufacturer as “fusible water soluble tearaway. It softens when washed and does not leave any bulk to your design but leaves a thin layer of polyester fibre which helps reduce shadowing in applique and pads the shapes.” This is an Australian product and Kathy at my local quilt store (Adelaide Sewing Centre) found out about it and got in a roll especially so I could try it and show her how it goes. Love my LQS! If your local quilt store doesn’t carry Polyfuse, Generations Quilt Patterns recommends a similar product, RinseAway stabilzer. I haven’t used RinseAway, but the main difference I see between these two is that RinseAway is not fusible. So you will have to glue it temporarily to your fabric with the glue stick.

My Test Shape

For my test appliqué shape I decided to try something with both moderately tight convex and concave curves. The letter “C”. This also happens to be the first letter on the word that I’d like to appliqué onto my dust cover, so it seems like a good place to start learning invisible machine appliqué.

What Dione Did…..

Step 1

I traced about a dozen reversed “C” shapes onto the dull rough (not glue) side of my Polyfuse and cut them out. Then I pressed these onto a purple batik fabric scrap with a hot iron. I  then cut out each of the C shapes from the fabric, but this time with a small seam allowance. About 3/8th of an inch. This, I found, was my first really important detail. 

The very first time,  I just roughly cut around my C shape. See?! 🙂

This didn’t work very well. I had a lot of trouble turning the tight convex curves, and ended up with lots of pokey corners around the edge. Not nice!

So take my advice – do as the tutorial says, and actually cut 3/8th of an inch seam allowances. It is worth the hassle, I promise.

Step 2

I clipped the sem allowance of the concave curve almost to the Polyfuse template. Apparently it is not necessary to clip the convex curves. But…… I actually found the tight curves sat much more nicely if I did. The sweeping curve along the back of the “C” was fine, I didn’t need to clip there. I then applied the glue stick around the edges of the Polyfuse template.

Step 3

I started by turning the seam onto the glue in the concave area. This was a good place to start because it was an easy area to get to sit nicely. I used my fingers and the bamboos skewer to manoeuvre the fabric into position. Expect to get a tad sticky doing this.

Step 4

I turned the tight convex corners next. I found that if I stuck down every second clipped seam tab first, and then came back and stuck down the remaining seam allowance tabs, this gave the smoothest edge.

At this point I also finally began to love a tool I’d acquired a long time ago. The Clover Mini Iron II (links to American plugged version. Interested Aussies, use this non-affilliate link). I have to confess, I asked for this gadget for a birthday several years back and then never found a use for it. But it saved my fingers today! Just beware, the stand that comes with the Mini Iron is pretty hopeless. The wire stand gets very hot and then collapses – then the natural instinct is to put it back up again – and owwwweeeee!!! Thankfully, for that aforementioned birthday, I’d also had the sense to heed a recommendation to also request a locally made wooden stand for the Mini Iron. After I burned myself on the collapsed Clover stand I made the effort to retrieve my good stand from the cupboard. My second new best friend in less than an hour! The poor Clover stand gets a roasting in reviews online – and deserves it.

Step 5

Once I had my appliqué “C” shapes all turned they were still damp from the glue stick glue. So I dried them by pressing with a hot iron (my normal big iron).

Then I glued my C’s to pieces of a batik with Elmer’s school glue. Just a few dots around the edge. Probably I used far more than enough here, but this part was fun after all the concentrating on turning edges.

I adhered three C’s to a batik square with a fourth C that was made using my standard fusible raw edge technique. You can easily tell the raw edge appliqué from the others from this angle.

I ironed these suckers on the reverse side until the wet glue dots were gone. In the end I made three of these arrangements. …. Being an ex-scientist, I like my experiments to have variations and controls. 🙂

Step 6

As you can see below, there is a difference in the appearances of the turned appliqué  and the raw edge fused appliqué. The raw edge appliqué is noticeably flatter. At the moment the turned appliqué is also very stiff, much stiffer than the fused raw edge shape.

Step 7

I then used Sulky Invisible polyester clear thread to sew down all the appliqué shapes. I used Deco Bob (a fine bobbin thread) in the bobbin. For each set of three turned Cs I secured one with blanket stitch, one with zigzag stitch and one with straight topstitch. The best outcome was with the zigzag – stitch width 1.0 and length 3.0 on my machine. I also lowered the top tension a little. To finish the samples I did the same zigzag stitch around the raw edge appliqués.

Step 8

Finally I quilted the groups of four C appliqué pieces over some batting to get a feel for the overall effect of the finished item. The reason I did several samples is that I wanted to see what the end result was like after I washed it, but still have an unwashed sampler for comparison.

I washed one of my samples by soaking in fabric detergent for about 1/2 hr with occasional hand agitation.

The result was that washing did soften the turned appliqués a little. But the raw edge appliqué C is actually still softer than the turned edge Cs. This was a bit of a surprise. As far as appearance goes, the turned appliqué has a little more loft than the raw edge appliqué but not a lot. The raw edge appliqué also has maintained a clean edge after washing, so I am not totally convinced the time it takes to prepare the turned appliqué is a worthwhile investment. I was expecting the turned appliqués to soften more. Maybe the Bostik glue doesn’t wash out as well as the Elmer’s equivalent? I don’t know, I guess it’s possible. Perhaps I will have to chase down that Elmer’s glue stick after all for a further comparison.

In the meantime, I will most likely press ahead with the supplies I already have to add some appliqué to my Sweet 16 dust cover. Softness isn’t an issue for that project. Stay tuned for a finish sometime next week. 

Do you have tips for doing invisible machine appliqué? This is a new technique to me.  I would dearly love to learn from any experiences you have had, so let me know!

P.S. Sharing on Freemotion by the River,  Love Laugh Quilt.

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