TUTORIAL FOR SHADOW APPLIQUE

In my role as Moderator for FABRICARDS, see link to join this group on the right...
I have been given one of the swaps to organise in the Database.
My first swap I chose to be a Technique
- Shadow Applique/Quilting -
Here then, is a tutorial of how I do this,
there will be other places to see this done by experts of course,
but this is to give you the quick lowdown on it.
I have made deliberate mistakes on this to show you the common pitfalls when doing this technique, off we go then..

This is my base fabric,
I do actually place a piece of wadding behind,
I just forgot it on this photo...


The next two pictures are showing you how the fabric dulls down
when you place the voile on the top...

These are the three fabrics I shall be using,
these three pictures show you different coloured voile's over the top
and the re-action to the fabrics again...
PINK VOILE.............................BLUE VOILE.........................WHITE VOILE....................

I have cut rectangles from the three fabrics I am going to use
and placed them on the white background, with the wadding/batting underneath that,
I have placed a piece of voile over them,
then, just so you can see the re-action to the colours,
I have put a piece of each of them on the top of the voile,
they will be removed when I sew of course...

Here I have sewn round all three of the shapes,
I have used a block thread so you can see it has to be right up close,
normally I would have used the background fabric colour thread of course,
here is the first error,
a stray thread, can you see it...

another fault- the fabric was frayed at the edge, look close...

another stray thread, albeit a small one,
you still don't want it there...

This sticks out like a sore thumb;
the stitching is too far away from the edge of the fabric under the voile,
if its not right at the edge, the piece underneath can move about,
NOT a good idea...

Here is a stray blob of cotton, you have to check and check again for things like this...

Oh dear, the stitching has gone away from the edge again,
and curved, messy looking isn't it...

Good grief, this time the stitching has
actually gone right onto the little piece of fabric,
this is NOT what you are aiming for,
IF
you are extremely careful you could sew right along the edge,
but that is very difficult to achieve,
so I would suggest you stitch along the outside edge of your shapes.

So there you have it. My tutorial for Shadow Applique. As I said I have done all the errors deliberately for you. You obviously will do them perfectly. It is an amazingly quick technique to do, not sure I would use it in a Quilt, although it would be very pretty.
You can put anything under the voile, a motif you like could be really pretty.
Buttons or beads, just make sure you stitch round them so they don't move.
Also there are so many different shades of voile's these days,
you don't have to stick to white anymore, just be aware of the colour change.
Have fun experimenting with this and look out for stray threads.

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