Spit in the Eye of Applique

No court, today, and I worked on quilting the weave quilt for several hours.



I had to take breaks every so often.


I love the way quilting looks but it isn't my favorite part of making a quilt. The good news is that my longarm was behaving and I didn't have tension problems. I've about given up on having different colored thread on the top and bottom because they look so much smoother when they are the same. I may eventually change my mind on that but for now, that is my safest bet.

I have blogged that I am terrified of applique. So I haven't done any. Today, I decided I would stick my toe in the water and give it a go on a simple project. I decided to make a simple Christmas wallhanging and see what I could come up with. My thought was that I could just put nine patches in the center and three borders. I thought I'd applique some Christmas stockings on it, placed here and there. I couldn't figure out how to applique individual blocks for this particular project so I'll be manhandling the whole thing while I stitch them down.

So I dipped into my Christmas stash and picked out two fabrics that have Peppermint candies on them. I stitched them together so that the stockings would have a top.


As a technique, I opted to stitch the Christmas fabric to some Kona backing, then turn it inside out.

Here is some Kona Snow that I had in my large piece scrap pile. I drew simple stocking shapes on it with my erasable marker. It didn't need to be erasable but it was handy. I used this fabric because that is what I was using for the background and I figured it would be easier to hide my stitches if it was all the same.


I put the Kona on top with the Christmas fabric right side up. After that, I reduced the size of my stitches (set it on 1.5) and stitched on the line. That put the right side of the Christmas fabric on the inside.

I trimmed the seam allowance to about 1/8th inch - just eyeballed it.


I then made a slit on the back.


Then I turned each stocking inside out so that the right side was on the outside.


I pushed out all the edges and was really happy with how they turned out.


I thought I was supposed to trim most of the Kona from the back but I asked on the HGTV message board and it didn't sound like that was necessary.

I have eight of them. I think they are cute.


I don't think they are too thick.



I put a small border on the nine patches using the same blue fabric I used on the stockings.

My plan is to put a white and red starred border outside the blue one, and then use the red peppermint candy fabric for a final border.

Then, I plan to sort of put the stockings down here and there and applique them down.


I haven't decided what sort of binding I will use. And for that matter, I may just birth it and skip binding. Haven't decided, yet.

The longest part of what I did, so far, was picking out the fabric. It has gone together super fast.

I plan to use a ladder stitch when I applique it down. Yes, I am definitely going to hand stitch it down. That was the point of the exercise. I don't want to just fuse it and machine applique it. I am not sure the best way to stabilize it. Glue? Pin? A little bit of fusible web? Staple? (just kidding)

Here's my buddy: