Craft Room Destash Challenge – Scrappy Shadow Appliqué Pillow Cover

Another project for the fabric scrap lovers…..

Are you a hardcore fabric scrap hoarder? I mean, do you keep all your scraps, even All the Little Bits? I’ll admit, I am and I do. I have them in large tubs, sorted roughly into colour groups. But, in my defence, I also know a technique that makes good use of those small fabric scraps. So that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. 🙂 And what’s more, I’m always happy to share my quilty-stuff hoarding excuses with you…..

Join me this destash challenge for a scrappy shadow appliqué tutorial.  And some pointers for turning your appliqué panel into a pillow (cushion) cover. I made my shadow appliqué pillow almost entirely from stash. I wonder if you can too……..

But first…… Ummm, what is Shadow Appliqué?

I’m so glad you asked! For the non-quilters among us, appliqué is a means of decorating fabric by sewing smaller pieces of fabric onto its surface – thereby creating new designs or pictures. So, shadow appliqué is when you prepare such an appliqué, but then cover it up with a second layer of fabric. This top fabric is traditionally a semi-opaque fabric such as cotton lawn, so that only shadows of the appliqué colours show through. Then you embroider the surface of the appliqué sandwich around the edges of each appliqué shape to re-emphasise the design and secure all the pieces. 

I’ve seen a lot of variations of shadow appliqué…. one of my favourites uses less traditional, more see-through fabrics for the top layer. Organzas, tulles and netting etc etc can all be substituted for the cotton layer to allow the appliqué fabrics to show through more brightly while still being defined and held in place by embroidery/topstitch.

For this project I decided to try a colourless organza layered over a fused raw-edge appliqué design. And I decided to finish my shadow appliqué with machine embroidery using 12wt thread.

If you’d like to have a go at something similar, this is how I did it…..

What you will need to make a scrappy shadow appliqué pillow

• A pillow insert. I had one measuring 50cm (∼20″) square that needed a new cover
• Fabric for the base of the appliqué panel on the front of the pillow. The appliqué base fabric will need to be large enough to cover your pillow, plus seam allowances, plus allowances for shrinkage during quilting and for trimming. I added 5cm all around, ie 60cm square. For this fabric I used unworn portions of a clean, retired bed sheet. It didn’t seem necessary to use brand new fabric, as it will be covered over.
• Fabric for the back cover of the pillow. I made a zippered cover, so my backing was made of two panels – both 50 x 25cm plus seam allowances. The fabric was the last of the white stash fabric I also used as backing on my 70273 quilt.
• A zipper about the size of your cushion. If you are buying supplies, you will get the nicest result with an invisible zipper. I used a standard zipper because I found one in stash. It was 45cm long and teal coloured. For some reason, I had two of these. Brand new. I don’t remember when I got them, or why…….

• Fabric for the top layer of your shadow appliqué (slightly larger than your appliqué base panel eg 65cm square). I used organza for this layer, since I’ve had a metre of it lying around for nearly forever.  I do remember why I bought this…..  for a trapunto experiment I never did.

• Coloured fabric and/or ribbon scraps for creating your appliqué design. Actually, anything that is safe to sew over is fair game here. 

• Fusible adhesive
• Embroidery threads. I have a collection of 12wt Madeira 50%wool/50% polyester thread that I used. The craft room destash also allows for $10 of spending if you need, so I took this as permission to buy two more thread colours to match my appliqué design. Woot!

• Sewing and quilting thread. I have plenty of that on hand, that’s for sure.
• Batting, slightly larger than your appliqué base fabric (about 65cm square).  I used two layers of thin batting. The top layer was an offcut of HOBBS Thermore polyester batting and the bottom layer was an offcut of Legacy cotton/bamboo batting.
• Optional but recommended – lint roller and parchment paper (called baking paper in Australia)

Phew!

How to make a shadow appliqué panel

Step 1

Choose an appliqué design. You can buy a commercial appliqué pattern or draw your own design.  Or you may decide to make it up as you go along. I drew up the skeleton of a plan – the flower stalks, a few flowers, leaves and strawberries, and the bird. And then I filled in the rest of the leaves and flowers as I went. I also added more colours to the bird than I’d originally planned.

Step 2

Cut out all your appliqué shapes from fabric scraps backed with fusible adhesive. Position the appliqué pieces onto your base fabric and secure them according to the manufacturer’s instructions for your glue. I positioned my design onto parchment paper first to be sure that I would be happy with the final layout.

Step 3

Make sure there are no stray threads, lint, cat hair, dirt or other random bits and pieces left on top of your work. Because whatever ends up between the layers, stays between the layers. And it would be super annoying to have a loose thread or worse trapped in the finished work in plain sight under the organza. I used a sticky lint roller to make sure I got everything off the surface that shouldn’t have been there.

Step 4

Lay your fused appliqué over a piece of batting (or two if you prefer.) There is no need to back the quilt sandwich, as the back will be hidden inside the pillow case.

Overlay the appliqué with organza (or a different top fabric as desired).  Pin through all the layers around the edges to secure everything together.

Step 5

Embroider through all layers around each appliqué shape. Add details like leaf veins at the same time. The embroidery can be done by hand, or by free-motion quilting. I used 12wt Madeira thread with a size 20 needle to free-motion outline my appliqué shapes. I used Decobob thread by Wonderfil in the bobbin.

Step 6

Add any further quilting in between the shapes as desired. I used Aurifil white 50wt cotton thread given to me as part of the Island Batik Ambassador program to add some texture.

Don’t look too closely though…. I wasn’t entirely happy with the way the quilting stitches sit on top of the organza. This is caused by the organza being considerably stiffer than quilting fabrics. No amount of fiddling with the tensions made the stitches sink in substantially. The lesson learned here is that I probably do not want to quilt a large shadow appliqué piece in this way. This is a really good thing to know right now, as this cushion is actually a test piece for a larger quilt that I am working on. 

How to turn your panel into a  zippered pillow cover

Once your wonderful shadow appliqué panel is finished, you’ll want to use it to decorate something! Here’s how to turn it into a zippered pillow.

Step 1

Trim your shadow appliqué panel to the size of your cushion insert plus 1/2″ seam allowances.

Step 2

Cut two panels that are the same height and half the width  of your pillow insert plus 1/2″ seam allowances from the fabric for the back of the pillow. Place right sides together and along one of the long sides, sew a 1./2″ seam with basting stitch ( a long stitch length so the stitches are easy to remove later). You will want to remove these stitches later because this is where the zipper-fastened opening will be. 

Step 3

Measure your zipper against the seam. If your zipper is shorter than the pillow form, mark where the ends of the zipper will fall and sew any seam beyond these marks with a short stitch length as permanent stitching. Press the seam open.

Step 4

Lay your back panel flat with the pressed seam allowances facing upwards. Open the  zipper a short distance and place it face down over the pressed seam.  Pin in place. 

Baste the zipper into place using a long stitch length and your zipper foot. Sew along the edge of the zipper, well away from where you want your permanent stitching to be.

Step 5

Once you are happy that your zipper is secure and nicely in line with your seam line, turn the piece over and top stitch along the seam line as close to the zipper as possible. As you approach the zipper head, stop sewing with the needle down and lift the presser foot. Ease the zipper head past the presser foot and needle so that you can sew the remainder of the seam. Repeat for the second side of the zipper. Sew across the bottom of the zipper if you wish.

Step 6

Use a seam ripper to remove the basting stitches on both sides of the zipper and also the stitches holding the seam closed over the top of the zipper. Your backing panel with zip inserted should now look like this:

Step 7

With the zipper partially open, align your backing panel on top of your trimmed appliqué panel, right sides together. Pin around the perimeter of the two pillow cover pieces and sew a 1/2″ seam around the entire edge.  Turn your cover right sides out through the partially opened zipper.

Step 8

Test your pillow insert for fit. For the moment you are only concerned about the fit around the centre of the pillow. Ignore the rabbit ear corners. Adjust your seams if required, so your pillow cover fits well across the centre of the pillow both horizontally and vertically.

Step 9

If you prefer pillows without the rabbit ears, and your appliqué design allows for the corners to be trimmed, you can reduce the corners of your pillow cover by bringing the seam lines in. For this size cushion I measured and marked 5″ in from each corner in both direction.  I then measured 1″ in from the each corner and marked those eight points too. (Smaller pillows will require less adjustment – perhap try 3″ x 1/2″ marks).

At each corner, I drew a line connecting the 1″ mark of one seam with the 5″ mark of the adjacent perpendicular seam. I then repeated this for the other two marks at each corner.

Where the two lines intersect is where the new corner should be. Re-sew the seam of your cover along the new lines.

Step 10

Test the fit again. Once you are happy with how your cover sits, trim the excess fabric and batting from the seam line and finish the raw edges with a zigzag stitch. Enjoy your new pillow case! 🙂

So, a victory over the accumulating craft supplies for me this month…. I have used some stash, gained  a new pillow cover, learnt a new skill (shadow appliqué) and done a practice piece for a bigger quilt, all in one!! And found an excuse to buy two new spools of thread to add to the stash…….. hahahahaha! Ok, so maybe it’s “Dione vs Supplies: One-All” this month. But I still feel like the winner. 🙂

Do you have a pile of small fabric scraps that you could use for a shadow appliqué pillow project? Feel free to pin this tutorial to come back to later!

Join us in Destashing your Craft Room!

I’m hoping  you also have your own projects you could share to help us all decrease the size of our craft room stashes. In that case, join us for next month’s destash hop.

Every month a group of bloggers are challenged by C’mon Get Crafty to create a new craft or project from their own stash of goodies! Check out some awesome creations you might be able to make from your own stash! 

If you’d like to join in the Craft Room De-Stash Challenge, you can request to join our Facebook group here!

P.S. Sharing on Freemotion by the River,  Cooking Up Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt, Quilting Room with Mel, Inquiring Quilter, Quilt Fabrication, Sew Fresh Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts.

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