All About Machine Embroidery: Day 26 – Applique

Welcome back to All About Machine Embroidery. You can catch up on the series here.

Today’s topic is my favorite form of machine embroidery:  Applique

I have always loved applique, so you can imagine how excited I was when I discovered that I could machine embroider appliques.  

Nothing was safe.

These are a few examples from Swak Embroidery.  You can see that these are mostly juvenile themes.  That’s not always the case.

This kitchen towel is embroidered using applique and fill-design.

Notice the different fabrics for the cookies and cakes.  They are then frosted with satin stitching and fill-design. It took two hours to do the entire design.  Time well spent.

Machine embroidery applique is a little different process.  Most types of machine embroidery get their designs using thread color changes.

Applique still has thread color changes, but also you are inserting a piece of fabric into the process.

Below are a few picturesexplaining the process so you can get an idea of how this works.

First, center the design location on something you want appliqued and put into hoop.

The machine will then stitch an outline of the design.

2.  Place the applique fabric over the outlined stitching.

The machine will then do a tacking stitch of the outline.

3.  Remove the hoop from the machine, but don’t unhoop. Trim the excess fabric around the tacking stitches.

4.  Attach the hoop back on the machine and push start.  The machine will put another tacking stitch around the design and then it will go back over the design with a finishing satin stitch.

Of course, this gets more complicated if you have several different fabrics incorporated into a design.

Some purchased design sets will come with an applique version and a fill version of each design.

 This design set from Anita Goodesign is a perfect example of this.  Notice the applique train and the fill-design train, etc.