Appliqueing letters

I've had several people ask me how I apply my letters to my playmats, burpcloths & quilts (like the EatPrayLove quilt). It is rather easy & quick to do. Here's an easy tutorial- sorry for the not so great quality pictures- late in the day the lighting in my craft room isn't great.

Things you'll need:

computer/printer/paper & pen

fabric scraps (5"X5" or so)

hot iron

needle & thread or your sewing machine

wonder under or pellon fusible material

heavy duty tear away stabilizer (not necessary, but helpful)

seam ripper

scissors

1. Print off your choice of letter(s) in your font (I used Smiley Monster) at 280.

2. Turn the paper over & hold against a window & trace the letters so you have the negative.

3. Get out your wonder under, rough side down, trace the negative of the letters onto your wonder under (tracing will be on the smooth side)

4. Lay your wonder under smooth side down on your ironing board and lay your fabric (right side up) on top. Use a hot dry iron to fuse together.

5. Once cool, cut out your letter, peel off the backing & lay on your 2nd piece of fabric & iron to fuse.

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6. Now that your pieces are fused together you can either hand stitch or machine applique the letter to stay on permanently. Lately I've been trying at my hand stitching more, which takes a LOT longer, but if there is a good movie on, it's a good excuse to do some hand stitching ;) I'm a multitasker!

7. If you are machine appliqueing the letters on, adding a piece of heavy duty tear away stabilizer really helps. I sometimes do a simple zig zag stitch, but I also use a simple straight stitch as well, like shown.

8. Stitch around your letters leaving maybe 1/8" or less around each edge. (i like it to fray a little when washed)

9. To secure your stitches (I didn't have enough light to get any close ups of this- I'll try again tomorrow) turn your fabric over & pull on your bobbin thread. A small loop will pull up (this is the top thread), using your seam ripper gently pull the top thread thru to the back. Tie your top thread & bobbin thread together in a double knot & trim the tails short. Do this for BOTH your beginning stitch & ending stitch. (and if you stopped at all in between.)

10. TA- DA! Easy peasy, right? This piece can now be added into a quilt as a block or square, or sewn onto clothing or burp cloths to personalize your piece.

PS- SAVE your printed off letters- I always label the piece of paper with the font & size so I can re-use it later when needed.

Just to show you another example of what you can do with wonder under & applique work- this was a little 'challenge' from my quilting group. They asked us to make our own name tags. Of course I waited until the night before our last meeting, but it was a quick little project. I think I might go back and put some actual binding on it with the matching teal fabric just to finish it off a little more nicely!