applique with Fiskars templates Click image to enlarge Designer: Kelly Edgerton When I was a little girl, I lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Because we lived in a remote area, I spent my free time making crafts using anything and everything I could get my hands on. At a very young age, I learned that products designed for one thing could almost always be used for something else. And because I grew up making do with a limited amount of readily available products and tools, I’ve always looked at craft supplies thinking to myself, “how else can this be used?” One of the things I learned while living on the farm was to sew, and today I have a whole lot of fabric stashed in old toy boxes – old fabric, new fabric, scraps of fabric, and fabric samples. It was all that fabric and color that led me to the scrapbooking world several years ago, and so I also have a whole lot of scrapbooking supplies. What’s a girl to do with two passions? For a long time, the only sewing application I used on my scrapbook pages was to apply my knowledge of color and balance. Then one day, as I was looking at a sewing pattern trying to come up with a scrapbook design, I finally figured out that sewing and scrapbooking products are interchangeable in more ways than we think. We can actually sew on paper – something that many scrapbookers have been doing for years. So why not take it in the other direction and use our scrapbooking tools to enhance our sewing projects as well? The possibilities are endless when we begin to cross-craft with our tools and supplies. Which leads me to the project designs presented in this class. For this lesson, you will be making sewing appliqué patterns using Fiskars ShapeTemplates. You will also learn how to manipulate the original shapes to create flowers out of hearts. Once you begin to look at your craft supplies with the thought, “What else can I make with this?” your crafting ideas will become limitless. My hope is that the following projects provide you with a springboard of inspiration as you begin to view your crafting tools in a whole new way.
Difficulty rating
Instructions (Print version)
1. Select your fabric and your Fiskars sewing tools, along with a Fiskars ShapeTemplate of your choice. For this project I used the Hearts-1 template to create the appliqué shapes to be sewn onto a premade apron. I also used the Fiskars Self-healing mat, rotary cutter, and Sewing multi-tool.
2. After selecting your fabric, a pattern needs to be made. Using the Fiskars Self-healing mat and rotary cutter, cut one each 5” strip of two coordinating fabrics to be used for the appliqués. Trace shapes onto a regular weight paper-backed fusible web product using the Fiskars ShapeTemplate. For this project, WonderUnder® was used, but any fusible web product will work.
3. Iron the traced images onto the WRONG side of the fabric. Let cool before trimming. Now comes the fun part: sewing! Remove the paper backing and arrange shapes as desired on the RIGHT side of the apron.
I iron one layer at a time, and then sew each layer individually. After the first layer is sewn, I iron on the next layer and sew that on top of the previous layer. When appliquéing multiple layers, the process is to stack one upon the other, sewing layer upon layer.
Using a zig-zag stitch, sew around the edges making sure to catch all raw edges. There is no pre-fold hem required, as the wide, tight zig-zag stitches and the sticky back webbing will finish the edges. Set your zig-zag stitch to as wide as possible and as close as possible (the close up photo shows the stitch width sizing).
4. When the sewing is complete, clip any remaining thread tails and press your finished project.
To create the flower shapes, the heart template was traced using the method of overlapping the hearts to create floral designs.
To get inside the pre-made tote, one of the side seams needs to be opened using the Fiskars Sewing multi-tool seam ripper. Just un-do the stitches and open the bag so that it can be placed on the base of the sewing machine.
To create the center of the flowers, use the Fiskars Large Circle Squeeze Punch and punch circles out of the paper-backed fusible webbing. Iron the circles onto the WRONG side of the fabric and continue with the instructions of sewing on a second layer.
When the appliqués have been sewn into place, turn the tote inside out and re-stitch the side seam using a straight stitch – you can follow the line that still shows from your seam rips. Use the zig-zag stitch to finish the edges.
For this project, cut 17” x 17” squares using the Fiskars Self-healing mat and rotary cutter to make coordinating cloth napkins. The edges were finished using an over-cast stitch. The appliqués were applied using the same method as previously instructed.
Fiskars 18 inch x 24 inch Self-healing Mat Other Products Used: |
