How to Hand Appliqué: Starch and Press

I really love to hand applique. I love the look of it and I like doing it. When I first started quilting about 27 years ago, my grandmother taught me how to applique and she taught me the technique of turning the edges with starch. She had me use a potato and I'm not gonna have you do that, but I'm gonna show you how I like to turn the edges for my applique. I've never been really good at the needle turned thing, and this way I can get all of my applique pieces ready to go and do all the stitching at one time. What you're going to need is some ironable or no melt Mylar, something to write on it with, and a Sharpie works really well, some junky scissors to cut it with, an old paint brush that has a small head to it, and some liquid starch. And then I like to pop holes in my Mylar pieces like this, using a hole punch and some pins, so that I can pin it directly to my fabric. So you're simply going to cut your piece out. And if you see the arrow on this, there's an arrow right here, I always put some sort of little language on my pieces that helps me understand how they're going to be used. That arrow right there is just telling me that I don't have to turn that edge because it's going to be tucked under something else. So my shape is cut out. And I'm going to go ahead and put two holes in it that are about a half inch apart from each other, and that way I can pin it directly to my fabric and it's not going to shift. What you're gonna see here is that there's a very pointy point to the tip of this leaf, and there are some ways to make sure that you have a nice tip when you're done. Now, this is a hand-dyed fabric, but if it had a right or back side, I'd want to put it on the back side of the fabric. And I'm going to pin it right on there. Once it's pinned on, I'm gonna trim it with a half inch seam allowance. Now, the nice thing about starch and press versus needle turning is needle turning has a little tiny seam allowance, and with starch and press, I can actually get something closer to a quarter inch seam allowance. In my opinion, that actually gives me a sturdier end product. So here, I've got the leaf with a quarter inch seam allowance around it and I cut the tip, the fabric that's near the tip, flat rather than pointed, so it's straight across. I don't want that big point in there, that's just too much excess fabric. And I'm gonna start at that tip when I start doing the turning. I'm gonna come in with my paint brush and my starch, and I'm simply going to place the starch in the seam allowance. It doesn't matter if it gets everywhere else either, this dries clear. And if for some reason, it didn't dry clear, I could just get it wet with a paper towel or a washcloth, and then it would be clear. It's nice to have some sort of pokey apparatus when you're doing points on applique. So I fold the tip over, so the tip of the fabric's going over the tip of the leaf, and then fold one side in and then use that poking apparatus to poke the other side in. I don't care if the fabric is hanging over in the seam allowance area there. I can trim that after I've ironed. And you see that I'm just using the tip of the iron to iron that over and iron it flat and dry. Then I'm going to be using the iron and my finger to gently pull over that seam allowance and then just keep the iron on there until the starch has dried. And then I'll go to the other side and do the same thing. What's really nice about this is that my edges are very crisp and very, very smooth. So this is what my leaf is going to look like, perfectly turned seams. I pull the template out and I can use that template over and over again. And then I do a final iron without the template in there. You wouldn't think that that thin, thin Mylar actually occupies that much space, but it does, and this will actually make my leaf even neater looking. And then I iron it from the front. So here you can see that I've got some of that fabric that's coming out from underneath the leaf, and I can simply clip that away at an angle. Now it's gone and I've got a leaf that is perfectly turned and ready to be stitched down. Now, when it comes to shapes that have indentations like hearts and flowers, then we're gonna do this a little bit differently. Again, we're gonna put this to the back side of the fabric and pin it in place and cut it out with approximately a quarter inch seam allowance. And on this one, we're actually gonna make a couple little clips into those indentations so that the fabric just kinda just sits in there for us when we push it in. It's kinda magical how it happens. Now, whenever I'm doing a heart that only has the one indentation, I make sure that I turn that indentation so that it is working on the diagonal, so it's the stretch of the fabric, so the diagonal of the warp and weft of the fabric. So again, I'm going to paint that seam allowance. Now, I've had many students say they think this is kind of futsy until they sit down and try to needle turn. And there's nothing wrong with needle turning, it just has a kind of a big, long, for me at least, learning curve, and this is a lot quicker and easier to master. So now I'm simply gonna push that fabric up into that indentation and then stick the tip of the iron down in there. And I'm gonna get the next one ready, so I've just in the same thing with the next indentation, and I'm just gonna use the edge of the iron to push the seam allowance over. And you do have to be careful not to burn yourself with the iron, but you get used to it after a while and you learn to use the edge of the iron instead of your fingers as much. So what I'm getting now is a nice turn on my petals with a nice indentation. It's so fabulous, because then when I'm done with all my shapes, I simply put them on my base fabric, glue them down with a little bit of basting glue, and I'm ready to stitch. I hope you find this to be really easy and that you have some fun with applique.