Wool Appliqué the Piece O’ Cake Way

Prewash cotton and linen fabrics—they often shrink and the colors can bleed. Felted wool has already been shrunk so you don’t need to worry about shrinking.

If you believe that your felted wool project will never need to be washed, don’t prewash the wool. If your wool fabric is wrinkled, press it with a hot iron and a nonstick pressing sheet.

If you plan to wash your project, you need to check the felted wool for colorfastness. Wet the felted wool and steam press with a light-colored cloth underneath. If the color bleeds, then wash the felted wool using Synthrapol, Retayne, or Color Catcher sheets made by Shout.

Please note that it is possible that the felted wool may shrink a bit more when washed or pressed with steam.

Fusible web serves two functions in appliqué with felted wool: it holds the felted wool appliqué pieces in place as you stitch and it adds needed body to the felted wool. SoftFuse paper-backed fusible web is our choice for fusing felted wool appliqué pieces. It is so light that you can hardly feel it on the back of the felted wool. Other fusible webs can be too thick, making the appliqué stiff and hard to needle.

Use a nonstick pressing sheet when applying the fusible to the felted wool. We’re not entirely sure why it makes the fusible web adhere better—maybe it diffuses and intensifies the heat of the iron—but it does help. Always follow the manufacturer’s fusing instructions. It’s a good idea to test the fusible web on the fabric you will be using.

Should the fusible come loose as you stitch, place pins in a few key spots to hold the appliqué in place. Add more pins if they are needed.

There is no turn-under allowance on felted wool appliqué shapes. However, you do need ½˝ of extra fabric in those places where one appliqué shape falls underneath another one. Be sure to include that seam allowance on the fusible web when you trace the shapes.

Aurifil’s wool thread is 50% acrylic and 50% wool. The acrylic fibers give the thread strength and cut down on the fuzziness that you’ll find in many 100% wool threads. You will see the word lana on the Aurifil spool. Lana means “wool” in Italian.

Wool thread is fuzzy in the same way that felted wool is fuzzy. It nestles against the fabric and blends well with it.

Presencia’s perle cotton is a thicker, more tightly twisted thread with a bit more sheen than Aurifil’s wool thread. Perle cotton size 12 is a bit thicker than size 16, but both of them are thicker than the Aurifil’s wool. This thickness adds dimension to the stitches on felted wool.

The appliqué stitches with attitude, sewn on cotton appliqué fabric, are made with perle cotton (see Appliqué with Attitude on Cotton). This thread is also nice to use for big-stitch hand quilting.

In all cases, you can choose to match the thread color to the fabric or use a contrasting color to highlight shapes.

Presencia’s Finca Perlé Cotton thread sizes 12 and 16. The 2 weights look the same at a glance so be sure to check the label for the weight you want.

If you haven’t already, please consider washing and drying (called prewashing) your cotton and linen fabric before using it. Why?

•Prewash cotton and linen fabric to remove excess dye and other chemicals, such as insecticides, in the cloth. These chemicals cause an allergic reaction in some people.

•Most cotton fabrics will shrink when washed and dried. Different fabrics shrink at different rates; it is better if the fabric has been shrunk to size before it has been sewn into the quilt.

•Fabric off the bolt has a finish that makes it feel a little slick. Washing removes this finish. The fabric will fuse better after these finishes are washed away.

•In both piecing and appliqué, it is much easier to sew together fabrics that are not sliding against each other.

•The seam allowances will fray less if you prewash and dry the fabric. Frayed edges can be hard to work with.

Spray Starch

Felted wool is both heavier and thicker than woven cotton and linen fabrics are. You may need to add spray starch to background fabrics that seem light. This is especially true for vintage cottons that may have already been subjected to wear and tear.

The best way to know that the colors you have chosen are going to work together is to audition them on your design wall before you begin sewing.

Each fabric is auditioning for its role in the quilt. Some fabrics will be perfect. Others will not make the cut. You really don’t know until you see them in place on the wall. You can’t fake the audition. Sticking some fat quarters on the wall and hoping for the best doesn’t work.

As you audition your fabric, remember that every color is affected by the color (or colors) next to it. As you make the quilt, you need to be constantly aware of this and pay attention to the way the fabrics are reacting to each other on the design wall.

When we make an appliqué quilt, we cut and place every piece in position on the design wall before ever taking a stitch. By doing this, we know that the quilt is going to be wonderful before we put all those stitches into it.

Begin by placing the backgrounds on the design wall. If you are going to piece the backgrounds, put as much as you can on the design wall.

Starting with the first block, trace and cut out the appliqué pieces. Begin with whatever piece seems like the most obvious choice to you. Add the necessary turn-under allowances and cut carefully so that if you like the way an appliqué piece looks, you won’t have to recut it.

Continue cutting and placing shapes until everything is on the wall. Stand back and really look at the quilt. Is it the way you want it to be? If you aren’t sure, take a photo. Seeing the quilt in the camera or on the computer screen does help you to see what’s really there. Once you are happy, you are ready to make the quilt.

No Peeling Yet

Leave the paper backing on the felted wool appliqué pieces during the design phase. It is handy to have the numbers on the paper backing to refer to when you are fusing the pieces to the block. However, because the paper is slick, you will need to pin the appliqué pieces in place on the design wall. Use short pins that don’t interfere with the overlay.