Applique Tutorial: Pumpkin

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I recently discovered story time at our local library. I have been so impressed with the program. Not your normal story time, each week has a theme complete with stories, songs, dances, activities and crafts. This week was "Pumpkin" week and I made the girls matching Pumpkin appliqués.

Appliqué is a little craft I learned how to do last fall. It's such an easy way to jazz up a shirt or make an outfit special. You don't need a lot of fabric. Scraps from other sewing projects or old clothes work perfectly. Though I used my embroidery machine to complete this project, you don't really need a fancy machine to achieve a similar look. The first appliqued shirt I made was using a 1954 Kenmore sewing machine with a tight zigzag stitch.

Here is the pumpkin design I came up with along with a tutorial on how to appliqué.

You will need:

-double sided fusible webbing (1/4 yard should be more than enough)
-stabilizer for back of garment

-fabric scraps in orange, green and brown (or whatever fabrics you choose)

-colored thread

-pencil

-sewing machine

Directions:
1-Print out a copy of the design

2-Cut out the individual pattern pieces for the pumpkin (if you want to make the pumpkin from multiple 

fabrics, you can cut out the different segments of the pumpkin as well)

3-Cut segments of fusible webbing that are just large enough to fit the pattern pieces inside.

4-With iron on dry setting, press webbing on WRONG side of fabric pieces

5-Place pattern pieces RIGHT SIDE DOWN onto the paper side of the webbing and trace the pattern onto the webbing

6-Cut out each piece

7-peal the paper of the back of the pieces and dry fit them together

8-Lightly pencil in the pumpkin segments and stem

8-Once again, dry fit the pieces together on your garment (or another piece of fabric if you want to attach the appliqué later) then press the pieces into place with your iron.

9-back your fabric with a stabilizer

10-use a wide satin stitch or a long and narrow zigzag setting on your sewing machine to stitch along the edges and lines:  begin with the pumpkin body, followed by the stem and lastly the leaf with vine. (I used my embroidery machine to add the name in the middle)

Here's a great applique tutorial for simple machines I found over at one of my favorite blogs: http://littlebirdiesecrets.blogspot.com/2008/09/simple-machine-applique-tutorial.html

Send me your comments and link up your own projects to my tutorial if you try this on your own. I love to see your work!