Flower Applique Attempt

I attempted to applique a flower for the tote bag that I was giving away and it didn’t turn out.  I still wanted to share my experience and process with you though.

I found the petal online and forgot to save the site so I could share it with you and use it again.  (Mental note to self….don’t do that again!)  I copied the image into word and then resized it until it was the size that I wanted.  I then copied four more and printed them, then cut them out.

From there, I fused Heat n’ Bond Lite onto my fabric by following the directions on the package.  I then traced the petals onto my fabric with a vanishing fabric marker (found mine at Hobby Lobby) but you could probably use any pen because the thread should cover it if you applique with a zigzag stitch or you can cut on the inside of the mark.

Next is cutting out the petals from the fabric.

Then placing them down where you want them on your final project.  I placed my down first to make sure that I liked where they were.  After that I took off the paper backing and fused to my main piece of fabric.

This picture is taken out of order, but oh well!  Because of the large amount of appliqueing I was going to be doing I thought that a stabilizer on the back was probably needed.  I actually read online that someone used coffee filters so I tried it out.  It worked perfectly!

It helped the material to not bunch up and once I was done it was super easy to pull away.  You couldn’t even tell that I used them!  Another plus to using coffee filters is that they are not very expensive.

The first petal that I appliqued turned out pretty well, but for some reason they kept getting worse.

I was not happy at all with the results but still finished the applique for a little more practice.  I knew going in that doing curves were going to be hard but did practice before actually doing these.  Like I said, they started out well and continued to get worse!  Oh well!  Better luck next time.