Reverse applique project

the finished applique (not yet quilted)

This hasn't been a Forever Project™ for very long.  Mr. Pirate and I recently went on a short road trip to a nearby quilt show in Shingle Springs, CA.   This show was delightful, although it didn't have a lot of quilts displayed.

One of the vendors was Jill Rixman of Placerville, CA (a nearby town to Shingle Springs).  Jill designs utterly fantastic applique patterns.  Because it had been raining, there weren't too many customers in the vendor hall.  I took advantage of that situation to strike up a rather lengthy conversation with Jill about this, that, and the other but not necessarily sticking to applique or quilting.

the pattern I used

I bought one of her patterns, "Beauty" from her In a Word For the Love of Applique series.  Although she has intended this design to be done using reverse applique, don't let that stop you .. you can certainly do the design with standard applique, using whatever method is your favorite.  You can find her Reverse Appliques here.

I've never done reverse applique and this seems like a simple enough project to wet my toes.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with reverse applique, this technique is exactly what you'd think the name implied.

Here's the basic technique: in standard applique, the design is placed on top of the base fabric and stitched to the base fabric.  In reverse applique, the applique fabric is roughly cut bigger than the finished design and that piece of fabric is placed right side up UNDER the base fabric in the desired position.  On the right side of the base fabric, you draw the finished seam lines of the applique .. I used an air erasable (purple) marker.    Then you take a BIG breath because you are going to be cutting the base fabric inside the drawn lines, leaving a small seam allowance to turn under.  (ummm ... I do it that way because I like to do needleturn applique.  If you were doing say, a zig zag stitch, then you wouldn't leave a seam allowance at all.)   Then, it's just regular, old needleturn applique to finish off the edge.

The finished motif appears to be sunk beneath the base fabric .. because it is!  :-)

one of the fabrics I used

For all the butterflies I stitched, I used vibrant multi-colored fabric as the applique fabric.  This gives

Since Jill's design is three closely spaced butterflies, I treated them as one unit.  The applique fabric I cut, encompassed all three butterflies.  BUT because the fabric is so multi-colored, it doesn't appear that I'm using the same fabric for all of them.  You get fantastic results without needing to actually HAVE  to work with lots of small pieces of fabric.

This is just ONE of the multi-colored fabrics that I used.  A chunk of the fabric, big enough to cover all three butterflies, was placed under the desired area of the base fabric.

the stencil I created from the pattern

Jill gives you a full sized pattern to use.  In this case, it is three closely spaced butterflies.

You need to trace the pattern onto the right side of the base fabric.  The very low-key way of doing this would be to tape the pattern to a window (or light box), put your base fabric on top, then trace the pattern.

But that's obnoxious.  I've done that enough times in the past to want to avoid doing it again.

Enter one of my crafting tools: a Brother Scan-n-Cut electronic cutting machine!  I'll think about doing another post about this AMAZING machine later but for now, all you need to know is that I cut a stencil out of sturdy cardstock.

motif with traced lines

I placed the stencil on top of my base fabric and used the air erasable marker to trace the motifs onto the right side of the base fabric.   Gosh, I love this machine!  :-)

In this photograph, you can see the basting thread that I used to secure the applique fabric to the base fabric.  I basted the applique fabric from the wrong side .. I just needed to run a line of thread around the perimeter, which, of course, is much easier from the back where you can see the applique fabric.

On the front of the base fabric, I traced the butterflies.  In this picture, I'm beginning the reverse applique process: I've already cut a hole in the base fabric and started the needleturn stitching.  To the left of the needle, you can see a small portion of the raw edge of the base fabric that hasn't been turned under yet.

finished reverse applique desgin

This next photo shows the completed reverse applique design.  Because of the applique fabric that I used, doesn't it look like I really used a whole bunch of different fabrics?

Nope, I totally cheated. :-)

I used the stencil to trace several clusters, and even single butterflies, onto the green base fabric.

I used about 4-5 different multi-colored fabrics for the applique.  Finally, after long last, the final stitch was done!  Hooray!

applique is below the base fabric

Here is a close-up of one of the motifs ... I'm trying to show how the appliqued piece is BELOW the level of the green background fabric.

Initially, I wasn't terribly overwhelmed by this technique.  From afar, you could easily replicate the same look-and-feel by using standard applique.  So, why even bother with reverse applique?

Well, it was an itch that needed scratching.  A box that needed checking off.  I've now done that.

While I'm not sure I will use this technique again, it has grown on me.  I might have second thoughts as to a repeat performance. :-)

The only real annoyance I had was with my choice of base fabric.  This was regular, ol' quilting cotton *but* it wasn't woven quite as tightly as others.  This caused the fabric to fray annoyingly, especially around the tight inner curves.  I think that if I had chosen something like a batik, or similar that has a tight weave, my experience might have been more positive from the beginning.

But let me reiterate .. this was not a fault of the pattern or of the design .. it was totally my error in choosing a base fabric that had a somewhat looser weave.

Now that the reverse applique is done, I really should finish it off.  I have ambitions of doing some embroidery work around the butterflies ... some vines?  some flowers and leaves?  That really shouldn't take too much more time (she says optimistically ::cough:  ::cough::). 

The final product is going to be a long, skinny pillow for a couch.. something to put behind your back to support it whilst you are slouching (which you should never do but we all do anyway).  :-)