Applique Applique Applique

My poor poor embroidery machine! I feel a little sad that I rarely break out the embroidery arm and hoops... but why go through the hassel when applique can be so cute?!  Case in point:

With just a few inexpensive onesies you can create so many fun options.  I spent an afternoon with a friend dreaming up designs and whipped all of these up in no time.  I think my favorite one is the M onesie, espeically when paired with these adorable baby legs:

Although I also really love using a simple blanket stitch to highlight a fun piece of fabric like I did here with this Japanese scooter print:

It really couldn't be easier once you know a few simple tricks... which I just looked through my blog for, assuming I've told you what they are at some point in the past several years, but I don't see them, so here you have it, an impromptu tutorial

• iron double sided fusible interfacing (like this one) to the back of whatever fabric you're using for the applique. Leave the paper on the back of the interfacing for now.
• Cut your shape (ties, letters, a piece of the fabric... the possibilities are endless!) out of the fusible interfaced fabric
• Iron one sided fusible interfacing to the inside of the onesie where you're going to sew the applique (this is the one I use for baby stuff... it's so soft against their skin)
• Peel the paper off the back of the applique and iron it to the front of the onesie
• Stitch around the applique.  You can use a variety of stitches - satin, zig zag, blanket, or even straight.  You'll just want to be sure to keep the majority of your stitch on the applique itself and know that if you don't completely cover the edges of the applique with the stitch (like if you just use a straight stitch) the edges of the design will likely fray a bit.

Easy right?!  Do you like to applique?  I'd love to see what you've come up with if you'd care to share in the comments.  

 

Applique Outfits

Since I’m not in love with making clothing, I’ve done several projects that partly consist of embellishing existing pieces. The latest are these three little outfits, 2 for Liv & 1 for a sweet little birthday boy.
I used the bloomers pattern that was part of the pattern from Liv’s bubble suit (once I had them finished I compared them to a pair of 0-3 month store bought bloomers and the waist and legs look like the right size, but the butt part looks huge… she may be super poofy in these, we’ll see) to make the bloomers from a Michael Miller fabric I adore, and then just appliquéd a piece of the design on the little orange American Apparel tank top.

This second outfit also started out with just an American Apparel pink top that I appliquéd another fabric that keeps popping up in my projects. I used my machine’s blanket stitch around the appliqué (you do know how much I loath hand sewing right?!), and made the matching elastic waist pants from the kimono pattern in Amy Butler’s Little Stitches for Little Ones book.

This last outfit was for a first birthday. I had some unique import fabric that was just waiting for the right project and this was it. I appliquéd the 1 on the top, used my machine’s blanket stitch again (this time set bigger) and modified Amy Butler’s kimono pants pattern for a bigger size.

You gotta love quick and cute projects!