Applique Designs for the Holiday Season

I wanted to share one of my favorite pattern designers with you. I've been really focusing a lot on Christmas gifts for this year, fast and easy ones. And I have this pattern company that I often will go to for my go-to projects. And it's called The Wooden Bear Quilt Designs. I've got a few of her patterns here that I just thought that I would share with you. These are actually tell patterns, they're little patternlettes, and they're very inexpensive. You can get them online or many quilt shops have them. I've really enjoyed doing them because there are a lot of fun. I've also just taken the applique of them and I've taken them and brought them to put them onto a baby quilts for like baby's first Christmas, baby's first winter, baby's first Thanksgiving, whatever it was. Maybe put them on a bib. They're just really adorable and fun to do. They're really easy. She also has these great wall hangings. And this one is 22 by 30, but it would make a really fun quilt if you just wanted to add a couple more borders onto it. And then we have this one, which is 30 by 19. And I just think that this would be a really fun little quilt too. You could do this bottom portion as it is and maybe just do some strip quilting up above it and then follow it through with that same border all the way around. And then we have the Straddling Santa. We have Straddling Bunny. I actually had made the Straddling Bear one and that one was so much fun to make. And it's just really enjoyable. All of these can be made with just scraps which is another real positive. So whatever it is that you've got around the home and you can put them on to sweatshirts or pillows, whatever it is that you need to do. There's so many options. I just have a few of them here. There are so many more to offer. I'd really go online and check it out. But I thought I would bring some of what I've worked on here, just to show you, and to show you how fun and easy it is. So this is my little Rudolf. And what I've done is I have done a decorative stitch around him. Thing to remember about the decorative stitch is that you want to use a 12 weight. I really like Sulky's 12 weight. It comes in many colors and varieties. I generally will use a top stitch needle when I'm using it. And I also will use two different feet. One is an open toe embroidery foot and the other is an applique foot. And the reason that I will use one or the other of these so you can actually see what you're doing as you are doing the applique. Now, if I'm going to use this 12 weight thread, what I need to do, so I need to remember to make sure that the tension is a little bit lower on my machine because that's gonna take a little bit more pull. It's a much thicker than the normal thread that you would use. So it's a very important point to remember. And there you can use many different types of decretive stitches. I used a different stitch for his nose then I use for the rest of him. I did put button eyes on him but you can just put on a nice little French knot. Now this is one of my favorites. It's the penguin. And it actually called for black and then black on black. And I really liked the way that this fabric just looked. And once I had it together, Oh, I was just in love with it. And I don't know that I can bear to part with this one, but I'm just going to have to find more of my scraps like this. I also decided to do a lot of different fabrics. So this is actually a very nice flannel fabric and it gives it a little bit of texture. And these towels can be purchased in just about any quilt shop, but you can also go to like the Dollar Store, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Target, Walmart, Kohl's. Any place you want. Find a towel that you like and then that's what you want to do. You want to applique on it. Now, when you do the applique on it, you're gonna want to use a tearaway stabilizer. I tend to use the Sulky brand but I also have used wax paper. And what I do is the shiny side, or not wax paper, I'm sorry, freezer paper, and the shiny side of the freezer paper I iron to the wrong side of my project. So I would iron it to the backside. And what that does is it gives it enough stabilizer so you're not having pulled stitches, and the stitches will come out equally and even and they'll just be beautifully made. And then you can just rip it away when you're all done with that project. And you've got your beautiful little wall hanging. Or towel or whatever. You've got them for many different holidays. This one I actually did put on two little gem eyes. I tend not to want to do that too often because it can scratch, especially if you're doing dishes and maybe the dishes have a decorative paint on them for the holidays. So this would truly be better as maybe a table topper. If there was a turkey on each side where you could open it up and there'd be a turkey on this side and then a turkey on that side as well. Another thing that you can do is you can decorate it in such a way where you may have some leaves perhaps that go around. I do have just an example of how easy it is to put these guys together, just so you can see real quickly. As you can see, I have a bag full of little scraps. And I have these little Christmas tree lights. Now I choose from the scraps. And then I just cut them into sizes that I need. You could see that this scrap bag is all red. I keep a variety of scrap bags and these are all Christmas and therefore applique. And I'll have them in certain drawers and they'll be color coordinated. So one bag may be white, one bag may be red, one bag may be green. You know, just, you know where I'm going with this. So that way I have access to those scraps that I need them. And I'm not going in digging or trying to make scraps out of my fat quarters because I might really need those fat quarters for something else later. Maybe the backing for the pillow that I'm gonna make out of the applique. So each of my pieces are marked. I'm always very cautious about using my Steam-A-Seam. One side of it actually has an adhesive and it's a sticky adhesive and the other side comes away. I always make sure that I trace onto the side that has the adhesive that is stuck to it. And a good way to do that when you're doing these, all of these different patterns, is the pattern pieces come and I just tape it to a window or I have a light box. And then I tape my Steam-A-Seam over it. I always make sure that that backing is still on there. And the reason I do that is because I don't want that web fusing to come onto my pattern because it will stick onto that. And then I've destroyed a Steam-A-Seam plate piece as well as a pattern. So I'm going to just take all these Steam-A-Seam pieces off but I do have everything labeled. So this is the snout and this is the face. And I think that that is the way the face goes. I'm just gonna take a quick peek at my little... Yes, it is the way that it goes, but this goes upside down. And I should actually take out the pattern so you can follow me as I go. So here's the pattern so we know what we're dealing with. Now you can use, as I said, the back piece to the Steam-A-Seam or you can use an applique sheet, whichever you have at home. Here are all the pieces. And then this shows you how it's going to be set up. Now, the important thing is to know that you don't have to have it as it shows. You can have things that can be just a little cocked to one side or the other. I am actually going to shut this up again, just so I can follow the picture. And bring it down. It's sticky on one side. So those pieces should stick really nicely. And I'm just gonna have this reindeer ear going... the reindeer antler going down just a little bit. And the other one, I'm probably gonna have sticking up a little bit more. Because I want to give it some character. And then the ears, of course. So again, you can have one ear coming over more and one ear sticking up more. And you can always use, I have these little light bulbs that I have found at a craft store in the department where they have scrap booking. And so you can kind of have it just hanging from his antlers, like such, and then all you're gonna want to do is you're just gonna want to take and you're gonna want to press it down. Although, before I do that, I really think I do want to have his antlers a little bit more. He almost looks like a puppy dog. So if you took away these, you actually would have a nice little puppy dog too, wouldn't you? We're that family that's got that special dog in their life. So you could do a dog. Then with the eyes, I would do a French knot. And it sticks right to that paper because it has adhered to each other. It'll come off as one piece, and you can put it wherever you need to put it, whether it's on a t-shirt, a bib, a baby blanket. but you've got your little applique there. You could have it go whichever way you'd like it to go. It's all up to you and your creative juices. So I just suggest you go and you have a great time. Head on over to thewoodenbear.com and let's check it out. Let's see what we can find. The Wooden Bear, and great patterns. I hope that you enjoy them.