Ever wanted to try fusible appliqué? It’s one of the hottest techniques being used by quilters. It’s an easy, almost instant way to create fabulous designs for everything from quick crafts to art quilts.
Essentially, you iron fusible web onto the back of fabric – sort of like melting a very thin sheet of glue. This fuses the fabric fibers into a stable sheet which can be cut out into any shape. The shape is then ironed down onto fabric to make your design. There are several brands of light weight fusible webs available from quilt stores. I recommend using a teflon pressing sheet to keep the fusible web from gunking up your iron. Here’s how to do it:
* Cut fabric a little larger than the actual finished size of the shape you want and cut a piece of fusible web to fit the fabric.
* Fold teflon sheet in half on the ironing board . Open teflon sheet and lay the piece of fusible web down and the fabric right side up covering the fusible web.
* Fold over the teflon sheet so that the fabric and fusible web is sandwiched between the two layers of teflon sheet.
* Iron the teflon sheet for about 4 seconds with a hot, dry iron and let cool for a few seconds.
* Open pressing sheet and peel off the fused fabric. The fusible web is now melted into the fabric.
* Wipe the sheet clean with a small wad of batting to remove every trace of melted fusible web left on the sheet. This is important – you want to keep the sheet clean.
* Draw the desired shape on the reverse side of the fabric or cut free hand with a sharp scissors. Make sure that there are no little “fringes” of fusible showing around the edge as these will stick to your iron. A product such as ‘Hot Iron cleaner’ is useful to clean off any bits of fusible that inevitably get onto you iron.
Your shape is now ready to iron down into place. If your fusible appliqué design is used on a quilt that will be washed, finish off the edges with machine stitches. If it’s for a wall hanging that won’t be washed, the edges of your fusible appliqué shapes can be left with out stitches