DIE CUTTER APPLIQUE

It has been a long time since I have done any applique work.  I remember putting appliques on my son's clothes when he was a toddler and of course on pillows, home decor or small blankets.  I don't believe I ever put large appliques on my own clothes. 

Back in the day there was only one way to cut appliques- by hand!  Now we have die cutting machines, laser cutting machines and the cutting needles in our sewing computer machines.  I have tried all these methods and they all have specific advantages and disadvantages which depend on the intricacy of the design.  I don't mind cutting out simple designs by hand.  The price is right!

I used my Accuquilt die cutting machine to cut out the alphabet letters for these pillow cases.  I applied Heat and Bond light weight fusible to the wrong side of the fabric with the paper still attached before I cut out the shapes.  The results were very, very clean.  From there you either stitch them on manually with a decorative stitch which is quite tedious or you purchase  the coordinating software to stitch out a placement line and the decorative perimeter stitching.  The end results are very professional.  If you prefer the look of hand stitches then the manual method may be more to your liking. Thankfully my sewing machine has the 'hover' feature which makes the manual method a great deal easier but I still find the process quite tedious.  The Bernina 'knee lift' is also a great help.

My 'Cut Work' software program allows me to use the cutting needles within the sewing machine to cut out the letters.  The fabrics must be stiffened and stabilized to achieve a decent cut.  The cutting needles perforate the fabric like the tiny perforations on bank checks.  The final appearance is not as clean as a die cut but can still be covered up nicely with an appropriate decorative stitch in the software program.  There are numerous stitches available to pick from.  It's a matter of testing out a few of the stitch options to see which covers best for your fabric choice. The final results can be just as clean with the right stitch.  Next time around I will experiment with different style fonts in my Cut Work software program.  The letters above are simply arial . 

I made pillow cases for two little boys and placed their names on the side hem.   I also added a very light weight fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric to support the appliques which worked out nicely.   I'm sure these new pillow cases will make bedtime more pleasing! 

Our sewing world continues to grow every day with all these new toys to make things more fun !  The end results are really great !