Well, it’s literally taken all month, but I finally have a Machine-Stitched, Turned-Edge Appliqué method that I Like!

This month, the goal for each Island Batik Ambassador was to try a technique we hadn’t done before. I really liked this challenge…. my biggest problem was choosing  just one thing, because I have a huge (and still growing) list of things I think I’d like to have a go at. And this month hasn’t actually helped that much….. reading through all the other ambassador projects this month has really only added to my quilting bucket list! I’m going to have to live forever! hahaha!

Anyway, I have been a good girl for once and focussed down on one technique long enough to make it useful! Are you proud of me or what!?! No squirrels in my sewing room this month! 

For my new-to-me technique I chose one often called “invisible machine appliqué”. What it actually is, is turned-edge appliqué that is sewn down by machine rather than by hand. But in a manner that doesn’t yell “Machine stitched!!”. This was my first attempt earlier in the month…..

I wasn’t happy with the look of this. So I played with it some more.

Want to see where I ended up?

Why turned-edge machine appliqué?

I have been doing a lot of raw-edge appliqué lately. Somewhere in the dim dark past (ie secondary school!) I made a hand-stitched appliquéd cushion. Just the once, I also did a little appliqué using a similar sew-in interfacing method to the one Connie Kresin tried out this month. But that’s as far as my appliqué skills have ever gone. And I wanted a bigger variety of skills at my disposal – primarily to give me more scope in my future quilt designing adventures.

I’ll be brutally honest. I wanted all the loveliness of hand appliqué without the hand sewing! Because I am lazy busy.

At last check-in…….

I had explored the machine sewn turned-edge appliqué technique quite a bit, and come to a place where I could complete my project for March (which was an appliquéd cover for my HQ Sweet Sixteen).

I  used an iron-on water soluble stabilising product called Polyfuse to create my appliqué shapes. It made really great shapes, but it leaves the appliqué stiffer than iron-on adhesive does. Which is not how hand stitched appliqué feels. So, I was mildly disappointed but then I kinda solved this problem by removing some of the excess stabiliser before I ironed it on. The downside of this was that it made the job extra fiddly.

I also used clear monofilament polyester thread to try to hide the machine stitches, but quickly became annoyed at the way it misbehaves in my sewing machine. It is such a pain to work with, getting itself unravelled and tangled all the time.  And it’s so shiny it’s not really invisible anyway. So, for my machine cover, I ended up using a matching Rasant thread instead.

And, if all that wasn’t bad enough, I didn’t really enjoy using my sewing machine’s specialty stitches to sew the appliqués down. Zigzag stitch was too visible and I didn’t like my machine’s blind hem stitch. I ended up using (read: abusing) a straight stitch instead. I sewed just off the edge of the turned appliqué shapes, and every now and then I forced the appliqué  to wobble sideways a few threads to be just caught by the needle. Can you imagine doing this for any length of time? I’d go mad and probably get RSI continuously fighting the feed dogs like that.

However, the end result was actually pretty good.

But to say I was satisfied with the technique would be a lie. And I knew if I left it there, I would avoid doing anymore of this kind of appliqué for a very long time. Sure, it was fine for a machine cover, but not great for a bed or lap quilt. I didn’t like the stiffness. I didn’t like the slowness. And I thought I should be able to improve on the look of the visible sewing stitches as well. 

More Research

After my first post about my experimentation with machine stitched appliqué, I had some great recommendations from readers. Thank you to everyone who shared their expertise with me! Much gratitude. xx

I also went and picked the brains of Kathy at my local quilting store, the Adelaide Sewing Centre. Not surprisingly, she is not a fan of monofilament thread. Kathy recommended Decobob or Wonderfil as better alternatives. I had already tried Decobob and wasn’t convinced there was any real improvement in “invisibility” over the Rasant I used. And Rasant is cheaper.  But I did buy a small cone of Invisafil Shadow Blue by Wonderfil. It is 100wt, very soft, very strong and really really fine. It is coloured polyester, not cotton….. But I’ll admit I am in love with it anyway….. more on that in a moment.

And I also scoured the internet for further ideas. Possibly the singularly most useful blog I found on this topic was One Piece at a Time. If you want further reading about appliqué, I highly recommend having a poke around this blog.

More Experimentation – Turned Appliqué Shape Preparation

I ended up succumbing and trying the freezer paper/starch method of preparing appliqué shapes. I was seriously resisting this. Because one afternoon, a few years ago, I tried starching the edge of a random shape to see if this technique was as promising as it sounded. It was such a dismal failure at the time that I never even finished preparing a single shape, and I swore off doing turned appliqué “ever again”!

It turns out that one of the fatal mistakes I made then was only using a single layer of freezer paper for the appliqué template. This time I was advised to use 3 layers of freezer paper. Definitely a BIG improvement. Happy Dance Number One.

But I wasn’t happy with the way the starch held (or more correctly, didn’t hold) the seam allowances down. It just doesn’t work well for me. It’s too fiddly and doesn’t stay put! Especially once I try to remove the templates. Perhaps it is the brand of starch I have. Perhaps it is just me. I don’t know, but it wasn’t long before I remembered why I swore never to try the starch-turned method again.

So I tried straight vodka instead of starch to turn the seam allowances on my appliqué. Why? Because Lynette of What a Hoot Quilts uses this method and she does some very impressive appliqué. For me, vodka was an improvement over the starch (and no, not because I was drinking it!!). But still, I was not loving this technique. And then I wondered….. what if……. what if I replace the starch with watered down Elmer’s washable school glue. ……..? 

And, by golly IT WORKS!! Look how flat my seam allowances sit!  Happy Dance Number Two.

 

Using this method, it was easy to turn the outer curves. I didn’t even need to clip the sharp curves like I needed to with the glue stick method. But the inner curves, which were so easy and perfect with the glue stick method? I was disappointed using diluted Elmer’s. Then I realised that I am not bound to a single method. I could combine the two methods…. glue stick for inner curves, watered down Elmer’s glue for outer curves! Happy Dance Number Three!

The only further change I made after trying a few of these was to trim the seam allowances back after I’d turned them to give a nicer finish with less bulk underneath. Otherwise I found that the wide seam allowances made the appliqués feel bumpy once sewn down. Perhaps this is more a problem with fine weave batiks than coarser fabrics – I’m not sure. Anyway, the trimming solved this problem.

More Experimentation – Sewing down the Appliqué

I also made changes to the sewing down step of the turned appliqué process.

Firstly I switched to the Invisafil thread mentioned earlier in a colour close to the appliqué I was sewing down. This thread is glossy rather than shiny and is much harder to see against similarly coloured fabric than shiny monofilament thread. I did have to drop my upper tension a lot to stop breakages.

And I used my HQ Sweet SIxteen to sew down the appliqués in a free-motion approximation of a blind hem stitch. This sped up the process. And it was easier on the hands. You can do the same on a domestic sewing machine set up for free-motion quilting.

Along the way I also learned that you should definitely sew down the appliqués first without any batting underneath if you would like the stitches to remain subtle. Placing the batting underneath before stitching the appliqué down (a favourite trick of mine for raw-edge appliqué) accentuates the stitches a bit. So don’t do that!

So, that’s it from the very Happy Dancing Chameleon for March.

I hope you have enjoyed following along my turned appliqué experimentation process….. I think I shall write this up as a less verbose step-by-step tutorial very soon. Then you can bookmark it if you’d like to give my method a try. But before then….. Tomorrow is the first of April, and that means it is time to meet the Orange Bear for the Beary Colourful BOM! Hope to see you then!

P.S. The beautiful fabrics used in this post were given to me by Island Batik for use in my role as an Island Batik Ambassador. 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.

P.P.S. If you’d like to see what the other Island Batik Ambassadors did for their new technique in March, I can highly recommend a tour. I found more things I want to try… you just might too! You can find a list of all the current Ambassadors’ blogs here. Some of the techniques people tried include: reverse applique, inset circles, cathedral windows, dresden plates, convergence quilts, various rulers/gadgets/templates/kits and art quilting from photos.

P.P.P.S Sharing at Crazy Mom Quilts, 

---

Would you like to keep in touch with Clever Chameleon and the fun quilty ideas I design as well as find all over the internet? You can follow directly for email updates, or through Bloglovin’, Pinterest or FB. All your follow options can be found here.