.
| Squirt the appliqué with some spray
starch. You can just spray it, or you can put some in the lid of
the can and use a little paint brush or q-tip to dab it on. You can
even use your fingers! No one is watching!
The spray starch will help to keep the seam flat, and make it nice and crisp. If you don't have spray or liquid starch, mix some corn starch for baking with some water to a consistency of heavy cream. Use like spray starch. It works great! Use a hot stream iron and press the back of the appliqué with the freezer paper and cardboard still in it. Turn over and spray on the front. Check and make sure you don't have an "pointy" edges on your applique. These are formed where there are "pleats" on the back and nice even gathers. Let the fabric cool while you prepare the rest of the hearts.
|
| When your appliqué is cool, carefully loosen the stitches
on the bottom and pull out the cardboard.
Adjust the gathering stitches again by pulling on the long threads at the top. Your appliqué is now ready to ... well... appliqué!
|
| You can do this same technique to do circles and leaf shapes that
are kind of rounded and not too pointy..
. . . |
| To place the hearts on a diagonal on your background squares, crease
your background on the diagonal and line up the hearts that way.
On the straight, just eyeball it or measure if you must.
. |
| Next we will learn how to do some odd shapes that you can't pull around with basting. |
...
...
...
...
On to the next page 5