Fabric Applique/Superhero designs.

Fabric Applique is a great way to embellish your quilt and is much quicker than embroidering and I'm sure when it comes time to actually do the quilting when it is all assembled, it will be easier to quilt through applique than hand embroidery.

Applique comes from the French Appliquer, meaning "to put on" which has origins in the Latin applicare.

So all applique is is the process of fusing a cut out fabric pattern to your larger fabric for your quilt. If you look up ways to do fabric applique, you will find a lot of different things. A lot of people advise, drawing the reverse image on the back of your fusible adhesive then attaching it to the wrong side of your fabric then cutting it out and flipping it over and you have the right shape you wanted. I found this to be an extra un-needed step. In order to do this, you must find or draw your image. Either use a light source to trace the reverse image or scan it into your computer and use software to make the mirror image then either print it out or trace it. I don' t have the time or the patience for all of that.

I simply find the image I am looking for either draw it or print it out. Once I have my image, I tape it to the front (or right side) of my fabric, then I cut out the size of fusible paper I need and stick it to the back of my fabric (DO NOT PEEL THE PAPER OFF YET!). Then I cut out the entire thing, either with scissors, if it is a simple design, or with an exact-o knife or fabric/rotary cutters if it is a more intricate design. I use Pellon brand EZ-steam fusible paper, like the one found below:
http://www.joann.com/ez-steam/2962462.html#prefn1=isProject&start=36&q=pellon&sz=18&prefv1=false

Once your design is cut out, remove the tape and the paper from the top and you should be left with your cut out fabric and the attached adhesive on the back. Next thing you do is remove the backing from the adhesive and place it where you would like it to be on your fabric square. Then simply follow the instructions of your adhesive to adhere it to your fabric with an iron. Usually, it requires you to take a damp cloth and place it over what you are ironing and then iron it to your fabric square. Then voila! You have just done fabric applique.

These are my 6 superhero themed quilt squares. I went with X-Men, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, The Avengers, and Captain America. Speaking of X-Men, check out the trailer for the new X-Men movie. It looks pretty sweet!:



You can applique things on top of each other. The Captain America symbol for example is the small blue circle appliqued onto the larger red, onto the larger white, onto the largest red with the star appliqued in the middle and then the entire thing is appliqued onto my quilt square. I like using a nice blanket stitch around the border of my applique to make it pop a little more. Here is a good instructional video that I watched to get down the practice of blanket stitching:



Next Post: Lord of the Rings!