Let's take a moment to rethink our approach to appliqué and embellishment.

Fabric artist Sondrasa is passionate about incorporating appliqué motifs into multiple non quilt projects.

It's something you'll want to see.

Russ Little uses water soluble stabilizer and a little ingenuity to make freestanding yarn embellishments for fiber work.

Today's guest will motivate you to try new methods of embellishment.

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[Upbeat music] Artists and designer Sondrasa uses appliqué on a lot of different items.

And you're here to show us some of them.

I am so I love appliqué, but one of the downfalls of some appliqué is it's a one and done right.

You'll make a beautiful quilt or what have you.

And then what are you going to do with that pattern?

Well, I like to take elements of bigger projects like this turtle here.

- So this is this one.

And I'll take that turtle and I've put it on a placemat in order to give it more life.

What a cute shape for a placemat too.

- Right?

You make four of these, you make a nice sand dollar.

You know it.

And it coordinates in the house if you're one of those kind of people.

So how we do this is pretty easy.

We just kind of take basic appliqué shapes.

You can see we've already created our turtle here using simple raw edge appliqué.

- Okay.

And then this is the background where these several pieces have fusible webbing.

We've already fuzed this background though does not because we don't want anything sticking on it when we press.

And then I've also added some iron on stabilizer.

- Okay.

- Onto the back.

Just so when we go, because we're going to do some fun stitching today to kind of give some more texture.

And by adding that stabilizer, you're not going to get as much puckering in the overall design of the project.

Okay.

So one of the things I like to do is I have a appliqué layout guide that I use.

That's kind of my guiding light.

I usually start with traditional pencil and paper.

When youre designing?

- Yeah, and using a sketchbook.

But then I'll take that and I'll put it into the computer and use an illustration program to kind of refine my shapes and blow it up to the final size.

- Okay.

That way I can print it out.

And now I have a one for one scale.

You know exactly where the turtle gets positioned.

I know exactly where it goes.

Because you can see through that fabric.

- Yeah.

And if you can't see it very well, you can use a light box to come up through.

And then we're going to just do a quick press.

And you would just do a quick press on it.

And then you'd be ready to go to our machine.

Okay.

Well let's go do some stitching.

Sounds good.

All right.

So some fun stitches.

- Yeah.

So if youre like me, you have beautiful machine, but you have a lot of stitches that you don't utilize on normal projects.

So I like to take projects like this and take those stitches and kind of just have fun.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

Right.

So we have a couple of stitches today that we're going to play with.

And you're using a bright pink thread.

- I am.

You wouldn't normally use that but This shows up.

- You could whatever you want.

I would probably use a white or a very light blue to kind of reflect the waves in the foam.

Yeah.

- But the pink is easier to see.

So we're going to go with that.

So we've added that stabilizer.

So we know that our stitches aren't going to pucker which is really nice.

And you're just going to gently kind of wiggle your material around as you go.

And then we stop.

Oh.

So that's like a little loopy bubble.

Yeah.

And then there we go.

So then we pull a needle up, and then we'll just go back out where we want our little wave to go.

And then you can cut those threads off later.

Yeah.

You can do the cleanup work later.

So our bubble comes back in.

So many People have these fun Stitches on their machines but never use them.

There's hundreds of stitches on our machines that just get neglected.

And they need a little love, right?

So projects like this, you might find your next favorite stitch.

You know, honestly, by just kind of playing around.

And I've seen people who are like new to to free motion stitching.

This is a way to kind of get that look.

But you don't have to worry as much.

- Right.

So after you're done getting your stitch all the way through, you go ahead and you're going to pick a new stitch, right?

And pick a new spot.

We might come up here into the lighter and let's see I want to try this stitch out.

But this is a really nice way to practice these stitches because we're not through binding and all the different layers.

We're just going through regular material.

So you might find something that you want to use for free motion later, you know, or embroidery on an outfit and you just never know.

And you didn't worry about starting and stopping at the end because you're going to finish when you finish the placemat, that'll get hidden.

Oh yeah, it all gets trimmed off and is pretty easy.

Oh, that is so sweet.

That one.

- Right.

- Yeah.

And it's a nice little swirl with a star.

Kind of reminds me of a starfish.

So and you can see how I'm just kind of twisting the fabric ever so slightly to kind of give it a gentle curve.

So we're letting the machine do all the work for us.

It's really fun stitching.

Yeah, you can kind of relax.

Take it easy.

- Right.

Right?

- Yeah.

- Where's my cup of coffee?

You know.

Okay, that looks great.

Well, let's take a look and do a little trunk show.

I'd love to show you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Trunk show time.

You've got so much appliqué on everything.

I do.

I told you I love appliqué And I want to reuse it in as many ways as I can.

And one of those ways is putting it on clothing, especially clothing that I don't have to make ahead of time.

So, for example, this is my daughter's jacket.

And on the back I put this beautiful butterfly.

Yeah, I absolutely love it.

And you can see it's it's a project from another.

And I've just taken it and put it on here, but I haven't really done any satin stitching or anything.

It's just rough tracing stitching.

And the reason why I do that is it's a kid's jacket, right?

I know it's going to get worn and dirty and get washed.

So I'm not treating it as anything super precious.

Yeah.

- Right.

So I'm just kind of having a little fun.

I even put on a little caterpillar.

Oh, and the chrysalis too.

Yeah, exactly.

So the caterpillars journey and it's perfect for a little kid.

Yeah.

- Right.

- Beautiful.

Yeah.

So but to contrast that is we have this jacket that's mine where, you know, I've put in some more patchwork and then I've put in appliqué.

But this appliqué I've specifically satin stitched because I want it to have more longevity by satin stitching and covering the edges.

Right.

Now you have to be carefu about these seams.

You really do.

It's not just seams though.

You have to be careful of your buttons, of your pockets.

For example, you know this pocket here.

This comes and cuts in.

So part of that pockets now not usable.

- Yeah.

So when you're sewing you need to make sure that we're pinning our pockets behind.

Right.

That one out of the way so that you can do the stitching on the front.

Well.

And the other thing is too is yes, we're using a jean needle because this is jean.

But you're going to get to points like there's a seam right here that has like three different seams crossing my needle does not want to go through that.

Doesn't matter how strong a machine.

So you have to be really careful of certain junction points.

- Okay.

And then what I also love is that I am a big lady and I'm fine with that.

But that also means I have bigger surface areas.

Yeah.

- To play with.

- Yeah.

Oh this is great.

- So I can put huge focal points.

Yeah.

So you can just take any element and and reuse it in all kinds Of different ways.

- Nice.

And the patchwork.

I continued.

- With that beautiful piping.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Just a little bit there.

And it makes it really gives some more life to a jacket that you know, is fine on its own.

But - Yeah.

And sometimes you can find great garments at thrift stores too, which is a nice.

Well and it's a great way too make a custom gift.

- Yeah.

Right.

- Yeah.

Whether or not you're doing it for a child or a grandparent or whatever, it's just a nice way to customize it.

Okay, good.

Well, let's take a look at this cool backpack.

Yeah.

So this is a bag that I made myself for a change.

I didn't just slap it on something, but I did this appliqué.

It's called a rose moon.

And I really loved having that focal appliqué piece.

And it ties in the colors of the bag because you can see we use blue and then we have like a pink and a yellow.

So it all kind of ties in.

But not only am I doing this appliqué here, but then I'm going to reuse this rose and I put it on the back.

Oh pretty.

So now I have a trolley sleeve for if I'm going in traveling.

Oh great.

- And it has that accent right there.

Hook it over the handles.

Yep.

So it's easy to go.

Okay.

And this is a tea a mug rug.

It's a mug rug.

With a tea bag.

Yeah.

So I have a whole series of different projects.

The other bag has the.

Oh yeah.

Tea or coffee pot on it.

- Yeah.

And so I have these units and then the iron bag This is so cute.

- Is also part of it.

And you can see we use the same tea bag on both the iron bag and the mug rug.

So I've reused that appliqué element in several different ways to make customize a whole customized set.

Honestly.

- Yeah.

- This all travels really nicely together.

So sometimes you can make you can make your own bags, or you can use bags that you already have.

Yeah.

- Like this is a bag for sewing in project bags.

Yeah this is a craft bag.

And this is the bag that came with the iron.

And so I'm not hand making and taking extra time to make my own projects, which I can, but I have so many things I want to do.

Why not, like, jazz up something that is already there.

- Right.

Give it a little love.

- And you're making them.

You're personalizing them completely.

Yeah, completely and utterly.

- Yeah.

Like I've had people, when they see this, they know I'm coming, right?

Yeah.

- I have, I have this jacket her It's in the same series.

And people from behind, they know they call it Sondrasa wait for me because they know.

They know when they see that, then I'm coming.

- Yeah.

- So.

So when you do some of these, you do them as sections and then you hand stitch them on like this is like a felted fabric right.

- Yeah.

So for this type of project I would go ahead and you know this is English paper piecing combined with appliqué.

And I made this as a panel.

First.

- Okay.

- Full unit I made hexagons with the appliqué first, then did the English paper piecing.

And then I just hand sewed along, you know.

So did you first like put a piece of tracing paper on top of it and come up with.

I did.

I made my own template.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

And now I have that template forever so I can customize other bags for friends and family with whatever I do.

- Nice.

And it's really fun how these little shapes kind of are arrows pointing down.

The little tumblers.

Yeah and the little opening for the point.

- Right?

Isn't that cute?

- Yeah.

That's great.

Well, and then you can also take things like.

So we have this panel, but I've opened it at the top.

So now it's a pocket.

You created it yet.

One more one more pocket.

I needed it though.

You know I can slide my pattern in there.

- Yeah.

- So, you know, and then you have other little bags too.

Where this is a mug rug that I had that, you know, I just wanted to give this bag a little jazz.

And there you go.

Oh, all the cacti and succulents are so in right now too.

Right?

I mean, I love it.

That sounds great.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you for having me.

It's been fun.

It makes me want to think about what I could appliqué things all over now.

I mean, that shirt would be really cute with some appliqué.

Okay, we need to get together.

- Yeah.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

We'll be back in just a second.

Russ Little, who is a fiber artist, makes these beautiful weavings.

And then you make freestanding yarn embellishments for them.

Yes, indeed.

Some people may know these as freestanding embroidery, which is often done just with sewing thread to build a lace like structure on the sewing machine.

And then the foundation that that's created on a water soluble stabilizer is washed away, and you're just left with this lacy cobweb that can be applied to a surface.

One of the nice things about this method is it allows you to create an object and move it around, audition it in different places, and then once you decide where you want to put it down, you attach it to the surface.

This is a finished small art quilt.

I would normally do this once the quilt top and the batting are together but before the quilting happens.

Okay.

- So then as in this case, the quilting stitches happen and it's marrying The two things together.

These are pushed back more level with the surface of the weaving, whereas this one stands out so you could just hand stitch this hand tack it down.

- Absolutely.

And that's a design decision.

If you wanted to come out and be much more proud of the surface than you would do it afterwards.

Okay.

- It's like everything in quilt making, it's just one decision after another after another.

So you call these yarn embellishments, and that's accurate because they are created with yarn as a whole cloth quilt maker.

And in this case, I'm working with handwoven.

I wanted to create embellishments that were made of the same material that my quilt top was.

So let's talk about how these happen.

First, I begin by drawing out my design ahead of time on a piece of paper and then using a heavy duty water soluble stabilizer.

That's clear.

This is the the very specific type that I like to use.

It needs to be, you know, pretty heavy weight.

So the needle is going to go through it but not push it down into the sewing machine.

There's information about this online.

- Absolutely.

because there's so many different stabilizers.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

So let's take our marker.

And we're just going to trace.

And you can see I'm doing like an advanced kindergarten level of tracing.

It doesn't matter.

- Right.

You're not going to see this line.

It's a guide.

Okay.

- For when we take this to the sewing machine.

So we have our foundation and we have our pattern.

Now we need our yarn.

So all sorts of different yarn can be used for this technique.

You can use sort of crazy art yarns if they're a workable size.

And we'll talk about what that means more regularly crafted handwoven.

Are these all yours that you dyed and spun and they're beautiful.

- Yeah.

In addition to the the weaving I got addicted to spinning as well.

But other things that work really well with this technique are nice squishy worsted weight or DK weight yarn.

And you could use a mixture of wool and cotton.

- Absolutely or whatever you had around.

Yeah, here's the cotton that works.

Anything you could use?

Acrylic?

Yep.

It would probably wouldn't be my first choice, but it's art.

Right.

- Use acrylic paint.

You've got if you want a little pop of a certain color.

Yeah.

- Exactly.

So let's talk about how we manage the yarn while it's on the sewing machine.

We're going to need to use a closed, whole circular foot so that the yarn passes through the hole.

I strongly recommend using a purpose built foot for the best success with this.

- Okay.

So this is a couching foot.

It is.

It's a free motion couching foot.

The yarn passes through a guide hole and then down through a hole in the foot and comes out the bottom.

And as long as the yarn moves very freely through it, then it's great.

What if you have a yarn that's like big and lumpy?

Absolutely.

Then we think outside the box.

These aren't couching feet.

This is a darning foot.

This is an embroidery foot that you would use for machine embroidery, but they have holes in them.

So again we do the test where we put the yarn through and if it passes through freely then that's good.

With a hole as large as the darning foot, you could even have multiple strands of yarn going through.

And in that case, I might even consider using a zigzag.

Okay.

- So the sewing machine is already set up with this foot and has some yarn pre threaded.

So if we go over there I can show you a little bit of the stitching.

- That sounds great.

So I've never done this before.

I'm excited to see.

Oh it is exciting.

And it's play and it's rough and ready.

And there's there's nothing fussy about this.

- Okay.

So I'm not even bringing up my my threads.

We're just going to start stitching.

So again this is the the free motion couching foot.

It's threaded through the guide and through the hole.

Here I have this sock weight fingering yarn.

It's wool.

It's there's lots of play.

- Okay.

It's completely loose.

- Get it ready.

- Yeah.

That's what we need for this to work.

So let's go ahead and drop and begin stitching.

Oh it's so fun to see it feeding through there.

Yeah.

- Yeah a little faster you can go around.

And what I want to do is just go through this.

There's a couple places I've seen here where I might have missed or just caught the very edge of the yarn.

I'm not worried about that.

- Yeah.

because we're going to do some other things in a moment to marry this all together.

So is it actually stitching right down the middle or does it just try to catch it?

It is.

It tries to catch it.

And this is why you want the yarn diameter to match as closely as possible to the diameter of the hole so that it's, it's there and made available to the needle.

- Okay.

So and you just have to make sure you don't have your hand on the yarn and you're holding it in place so it can't feed through.

- Yeah If you've got it under tension then this isn't going to move.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

So I'm going to cut this.

So normally you would stitch all the yarn get that all in place.

But you were going to switch the foot out?

- Yes.

No no we won't have to switch the foot.

We just eliminated the yarn.

Yeah, we eliminated the yarn.

- Okay.

I'm going to pull this out.

I would have stitched the whole thing out so that it looked like this.

Okay.

- Here's a completely stitched one.

Now, if we put this in water right now to dissolve the stuff along the side, it would fall apart because we stitched the yarn to the stabilizer, but not to each other.

Itself.

- Yeah.

So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to zigzag, not literally zigzag.

I'm going to stitch back and forth across what's here, and this will unify it.

Now I'm sort of building that lace structure that I mentioned before.

Okay.

So you could do like a spider web or in this case you're just doing a certain area to hold it all together.

Yeah.

I could do circles around this.

A couple things you want to bear in mind that obviously the thread color, - Right.

- you either choose contrast or no contrast.

You want to stitch over the edge here.

Be sure to catch that outside.

Outside layer or else it'll peel off.

- Exactly.

- Like an onion layer.

- And if it does, you just trim it away.

- Okay.

It's not a bad thing.

We can leave this here and go back to the table.

There's one that's already stitched and we can see what the finished product looks like.

- Okay.

That sounds great.

Okay.

Okay, let's move our goodies aside and look at what we end up with.

So here.

- Oh it's so cool.

Yeah, you can see there I chose to stitch in radial lines.

This actually has a hole in it as opposed to some of the other samples we looked at.

And that works too.

As long as you stitch over that that last edge.

- Outer edge.

Okay.

- Precisely.

Now it's time to rinse this away to get rid of the stabilizer and just leave the yarn and the thread.

So what I'm doing now is trimming around the outside, because this is going to go into a tub of warm water to, to soak and be manipulated a little bit.

And it's this gummy stuff.

And I don't want to I don't want to put that.

It's kind of like glue.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Now I'm not going to bother taking out the the thing if you want to do the honors.

Okay.

I've done this before and it's so much fun.

So it's warm water is going to work better than cold or.

Absolutely.

- The warmer it is, the faster the glue comes out.

And I learned that through experience.

I'm sure that it was in the instructions, and I could have read it and done it right the first time.

And it feels very gluey, especially on the bottom there.

Exactly.

This will take several changes of water and some soaking.

I've already got the whole out there.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And you can felt also in here if you want.

If the water is really hot.

- You can.

The result is going to be this isn't a surprise.

It's very like the other examples we've looked at.

But ultimately you're going to end up with something that isn't stiff anymore.

No residual gummy stuff around the edges.

And again, now you can audition it for placement.

I think that these are also a great substrate for embellishment.

You can embroider beads, all kinds of things.

Yeah, yeah, all sorts of things.

So so then you figure out where they're going to go and you can decide whether you want, do you want to, you know, one to go to be raised where you would just tack it down or whether you want it to be quilted in a little bit more?

Yeah.

I've never done this and I probably wouldn't be inclined to, but you could even pack it and do a kind of.

Put a little batting into it or something.

To take me to make a lot of relief.

So it's all design choices.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, let's pull this.

Let me do it a little bit more here and we'll pull this out.

But yeah, it still feels a little gluey to me, but I think it's mostly clear around the edges.

So you actually do several dunks of dunks of washes.

Can I scrunch it up?

Bring it out.

- Yeah.

Absolutely.

And this is the felting.

If you have not all fibers.

Felt cotton doesn't felt some wools won't felt if they've been pretreat it to avoid it.

But if it's wool and you know how it's made a little bit of dish soap and hot water and rub and scrub and then plunge into cold water and then back and forth, hot and cold.

And that opens and closes the scales that are on the surface of the wool fiber.

And that's what makes.

So they all latch together and it does shrink up a little bit sometimes that also.

- It does.

Yeah.

- And what felting is going to give you is just a more cohesive, solid product that looks more like wet felted or needle felted.

- Yeah.

Well let's pull some of these in and take a look, a closer look at them.

We'll let this guy - Sure.

- Sit.

These show some aspects that aren't in the example that we looked at today.

So for example there's some some sort of lacy webbing that's just created by taking that, that unifying stitch and crossing here.

That's how these were made.

It makes a bridge between these inner and outer rings, the backs in this case, you can choose what you put in your bobbin and what you put in the the top and.

Decide which side you like the best.

- Yeah.

And sometimes you can use a contrasting thread to really show things up.

Precisely.

- versus one that blends in.

Yeah, and I should say that the machine was set up with an 80 12 needle and 50 weight thread.

Great.

- So.

Well, well.

Thank you.

This is such an interesting technique, I enjoyed it.

Thank you.

We'll be back in just a minute.

From applied design theory to innovative technique.

Learn what fellow artists are up to within the art quilting community.

Join us for finishing touches.

Hey Marcia, you have some very sparkly quilts here.

I do.

I just love them both.

You know this one It has a botanical and floral theme, but what I love so much about it is it also includes a lot of the silver.

- Yeah.

And these are like brooches.

And brooches in every corner.

They found so many treasures to add, almost like from those bracelets, you know.

- Yeah little charms.

everything related to sewing.

And in the middle we have this gorgeous panel of fern fronds.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

- The color palette is my own color palette, as you can tell.

So.

So that makes me love.

The purple and silver.

Yeah.

And now what about this one?

- Yeah.

So this one, it's also very botanical in a completely different way.

And I believe these are fern fronds, but although they do look like they could be octopus.

I first thought they were often.

But yeah, I think they're the fiddleheads when it first comes out.

- Yes.

- It's fiddleheads.

Yes.

- Yeah.

I wonder if this is some kind of, you know, finishing.

- Yes.

You know what?

I suspect they are stars that have been buried in there and sown in.

You might be right.

- Because if you look closely, it almost looks like they are stars that were that the artist tucked in and sewed right in here.

They look a little bit vicious.

Yes.

It's great.

Thanks so much.

Remember, make time for contemporary quilting every day.

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