Easy Applique Tutorial

I Love Monograms

I love Monograms, appliques, and anything else that will personalize an item. Between all of my girlfriends and me, probably 50% of our possessions have some form of "identification" sewn onto them! I have always admired the beautiful appliques on baby items: shirts, blankets, bibs, bags.... and have always paid entirely too much for them, but I just can't help myself.

I've been crafting up a storm for Grayson's birthday party (In three weeks!! Eeek!). I have almost everything made, including her party dress which I am in love with. Her dress was made using a pattern (weird for me, I know) that I won during the "Sew, Mama, Sew" giveaway day event. It is from THIS pattern from the Tie-Dye Diva on Etsy. I have used her patterns before and love them!

I realized that my child is not going to tolerate being in a dress at her party, because she has a hard time crawling in a dress. So I wanted her to have a "1" birthday shirt to wear so she would  be more comfortable. I was going to pay to have one made, then I realized I had a hot pink shirt and extra dress fabric...and I was going to try this myself!

I gathered my materials and got to work! I love the way it turned out. 

It's not perfect and I still need some practice, but I love it and Gray will look adorable in it at her party! (Cake smash anyone???)

Materials:

Shirt/pants/bag/ whatever you're adding the applique to

Material for the applique

Heat-n-Bond

sewing items

Start by creating a pattern for your applique. I was making a "1"shirt, so I printed off a number 1 in a font I liked. Make sure it's not too curvy or involved until you get the hang of the stitching! I cut the one out of my paper. Than traced it onto the back of my heat and bond backwards! Your image will be flipped so make sure you trace it the wrong way so you're applique will be correct.

Cut out around your heat-n-bond and iron it to the wrong side of your fabric. Follow the package directions for bonding. This green and pink strip is from her party dress!!

Once it is bonded and cool, use your scissors to cut out your applique shape.

Your image should look just like you want it to. Peel the paper backing off of your heat and bond leaving the other "glue" on the fabric. See the shiny side below.

Make sure your image is centered where you want it on your shirt, etc. and iron it on. Now it will stay in place while you're stitching.

I used a plain zig-zag stitch with the setting below on my machine. I made a medium width stitch, very close together to get the smooth overlapped applique stitching.

Make sure your fabric edge is centered. If you have an applique foot, this will really help you see where you're sewing, but a standard presser foot will work too. I didn't even know I had an applique foot, until last night when I was digging through my sewing drawer!

The key is to sew very slowly and not pull your fabric. Let it feed itself so you get a nice rounded edge on your applique. Try not to let your fabric pucker. Mine did a little bit and made one of the corners look a little weird. Lesson Learned. When you get to a corner, make sure your needle is in your fabric when you turn, and help your fabric slowly turn the corner to get a nice edge.

Here is the finished view from the back. Not as messy as I thought it would  be!

And the finished shirt! I love it and it's perfect for the party, especially since it matches her dress! I may have created a monster...I will be adding cuteness to Everything!!

Gray was kind enough to model it for me. Then I immediately took it off because I'm still in denial that she's turning one!

I hope you enjoy making your own personalized appliques!

Happy Crafting!

Added:

Here are a couple of party pics with her enjoying her shirt...before she got cake on it.