Erica; Applique; 119; Erica: Applique

Epic A is a sophisticated friend to it but the simplest form of stitching in the way of simply sewing one piece of cloth on top of another. This is a panel which comes from the west coast of Africa and it's done by the Duma homey people who stitched these gorgeous pieces of very fine cotton to make very primitive simple stylized designs. Look at the rainbow colors of red pink and orange in the peacock's tail. And over here. Is a beautiful panel which is very symbolic. It's full of figures of adults and people. The animals represent kings and really this is a kind of heraldry of the African people. There's a hanging over here. And because Portugal was one of the countries which was once there this is a Portuguese boat. It's done very closely as I said with fine cotton and little attendings little row edges a tad back and then it's finally stitched on because it's such

taboo a fine cloth. But I cheated because it's much easier if you don't have to turn back any raw edges. So I used felt. It comes in loveless callous and here is a common or garden pot Hoda but I thought it would be very nice to experiment with your first application. You can whip up a little gift for a friend overnight. Just cut out your shapes and stitch them down with a fine stitching invisible thread you can use one strand of sewing cotton or fine embroidery floss which matches the color if you felt come up on the image upside the shit and go straight on to hold it with a little stitch at right angles come up on the edge and go down into the felt. Don't try and poke right through the material stitching down because you send it out of

shape. It will move when you've done that if you like you can climb the edge with all sorts of different stitches. I've done some chain stitch over here. You could do a stem stitch or couching but I really rather like the effect of it when it's perfectly plain. I put a little French knot in the middle to hoe these circles so that was if a quick way of holding all those colors because as I said the felt doesn't fray. But if you are working with linen and you didn't want to turn back any edges you could use buttonhole stitched which really makes a nice border go down into the fabric. Hope the loop come up right on the edge close to the edge inside the loop and pull it flat. Those loops always jump away from you but the neck stitch holds them in place. Pull it flat towards the side.

Well that didn't take very long to do but here's one that's even quicker. Just pieces of circles of felt have different colors. How down with a single French knot. On the inside. You see I just bought one of these ordinary pot holders from the store and covered it with the felt. But if you really want to be very sophisticated you can do applique A which is sewn down with cords. This is a hanging which comes from India and it's made it a certain section of India. They hang them in the temples for a year and when they've hung there for yeah they make a new one and then replace it and use the old one for festivals and all kinds of occasions. You see each of the

shapes is cut out in silk which has been previously likely glued so that all the raw edges cut out and won't fray. It's just like cutting out paper and then look at this beautiful peacock down here. It's all edged with different colored codes which cover any little frayed bits. But I thought I'd make a little. Brother lodge for my daughter with that same method. So I trace my shapes in tracing paper and cut them out in felt tracing paper fest so that I didn't waste any felt if the shapes were wrong and then outlined the whole thing with cords. Do you know how to make a koan. It's really great fun. You take a length of will and you put a knot in it. Pin the knot to a chair and then twist.

If you can find a pencil. I did have one here. You can put that in the loop. Hold it. Touch it with your finger and thumb and twist all the pencil. It's much quicker than twisting it. Keep twisting and twisting and you'll watch your cord getting tighter and tighter. Then if you loosen it slightly and it starts to kink you know it's ready cooked. Mine wasn't quite twisted enough now you see it's beginning to twist. Put your fingers in the middle. Hold it tight. Put the two ends together. Let go and then by magic. Use your cord. Put a knot in it so that it doesn't Don twist and then you are ready to sew it all around you all shapes. Now there's a magic to that too because if you look again at my leaves over here

it looks as though they've been just laid on to the material with no sign of any stitches. So if you put it in a frame. Then you can sew it down with one thread of the same matching color with long slanting stitches. I stitch these leaves down with tiny stitches first. Now I'm putting the quarter round the edge with these invisible stitches coming from the edge of the cord and slanting in going down in the middle. You needn't put a stitch on every single twist of the cord. But as this is for my daughter I suppose I should put rather close stitching. When you finished and you get to the end you can take a huge needle

and just plunge those ends that you left free through. It's quite a work to pull it through but then you just leave it hanging on the wrong side and it's all in the front. Well there's such a wealth of things you can do with applications almost an ending. He has a little jumpsuit but my 3 year old son with us. It's just done with Jesse and the school bus is just buttonholed very closely just the way I showed you on the part Hota and a little embroidery added inside and him as a suede handbag. There's nothing wrong there's no law that says you can't use a sewing machine but you could use felt suede cloth rather because that's a little easier to handle than sweat it. But here's a real must a piece. It's a quilt which comes from Belfast Maine and

was made in 1840 and it's all applique a velvet silk. Done with all kinds of different embroidery stitches. You see in this paisley design this piece of velvet is outlined with buttonhole stitch and then feather stitches work through the middle. There's herringbone down here and a double feather stitch. The two pieces of sew together but the clever thing about it is if you turn back one piece it's just beginning to lift off. You can see this paper that's been lightly glued to the back of the Velvet. Then they could cut the velvet out and buttonhole it down without having to turn back any edges which would spoil the shape and then the edges won't fray. Well. Now that was three different kinds of application. But here's an even more sophisticated kind. It's reverse

applique a. And it's done in San Blas by the Indians there who cut out lesson plans of fine cotton. They put two or three colors together one on top of the other and then cut the top surface away so that the next color shows and then cut that one a little lower so that that shows. So you end up with a beautiful design. Again almost Radek they take any thing that they see around them from a sewing machine to Superman. This is Superman you see and he was obviously taken from a coloring book because it says coloring. And they even embroider the history of their families on the back in the front of blouses These are called modus and certain

members of the family the grandmother can only wear red and orange for instance. So you know which blouse belongs to which member of the family. And he has a magnificent Indian. With crosses on his face it's a wonderfully stylized design. You can see how the lids of cloth that cut out one by one. Well that gave me an idea. Have you ever cut up a piece of paper folded up paper smaller and smaller and then cut pieces out of it to open it up and form a dolly or a sort of openwork lace patent. I used to love doing that as a child so you know as well and you could do exactly that same thing with felt. Instead of cutting and folding the felt which might be too sick. You could do it in brown paper and then use that as a pattern and trace it onto a piece of

felt then lay it on several of them has of different colors make them vibrate. That's exciting thing. Get colors that really excite you and then lift up the first layer and cut away. Dive in with your scissors hoping the shop enough and cut out. The first. Then you can delve into the second leg being shown up to cut more than one and so on until you have the colors revealed. You see over here I just left some of them. I put some green ones and I left all blue and with purple and red. Only

then I discovered that you could get really a beautiful effect if I haven't lost it with just the yellow and blue. And the red like that. Then you have to stitch it all down. Well sharpen up via scissors because you're going to be cutting up. See you soon.