Crafty Gear 411: How to Applique & Chocolate Kiss Design Tutorial

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Appliqué is an easy way to add custom design to clothing, towels, toys, bags - just about anything.  Satin stitched appliqué is ideal because it gives a professional feel and makes it durable to withstand washing & wear (which is why it's so popular of children's items).

Satin stitch makes tight, unified stitching over the raw edges so there's no fraying and a nice, smooth finish all the way around:

Today I'm sharing how to make a Chocolate Kiss Appliqué.  I had some silver pleather leftover from my son's knight costume from Halloween, so I thought this would be a fun way to use the scraps.

You'll Need:

- Silver pleather

- Sew-in stabilizer

- Adhesive tear away stabilizer

- Light Blue embroidery floss

- Embroidery hand sewing needle

- Sewing Notions (thread, pins, sewing machine, pencil, tailor's chalk)

First I drew the curved tag shape and the word "KISSES"  on the piece of sew-in stabilizer with pencil.  Then I hand embroidered the letters with blue embroidery floss with backstitches:

I cut the tag out and also cut a chocolate kiss shape out of the silver pleather (approx. 4 inches wide at the bottom and 4 inches tall):

I also cut out some tear away stabilizer lightly larger than both pieces that will be used when appliqueing.  The kind I used has a light adhesive so it sticks right on without needing to iron, baste or pin, which is especially handy when using delicate or unusual fabrics (like my silver pleather).

Next I centered the tag & kiss on the front of the shirt, pinned on the tag and marked the corner points for the kiss with chalk:

    

I peeled the paper off the adhesive piece for behind the tag and stuck in on the wrong side of the fabric, just underneath the tag.  I set my machine to a wide zig-zag stitch with a length just above 0 (which would make a satin stitch):

and stitched all the way around so that it covered the raw edges and creates a nice applique:

I turned the shirt inside out and, while holding the stitches with one hand, gently tore off the stabilizer with the other:

         

I turned the shirt right side out again and placed the pleather along the chalked points and put a couple of pins just next to the edge to hold it in place (any holes from the pins would be hidden by the satin stitches) and stuck my square of adhesive stabilizer on the back.

I used silver thread to applique around the kiss:

To make it easy to remove the stabilizer from the center of the kiss I used a pin to carefully peel it back from the stitching:

Now this sweet kiss is ready to wear!

Stop by tomorrow for a Crafty Gear 411 tutorial on how to do decorative stitching on ribbon!

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