Applique Tutorial One & a Small Contest

I've had some girlfriends recently ask me to show them how to do basic iron-on appliqué. I'm almost hesitant to show you all because this way of doing appliqué is so easy. It works really well for jean knee patches and whatnot. You can have minimal to no sewing abilities and still do this well. Heck, you don't even need a sewing machine. You can definitely sew this if you desire and I actually would recommend it but it is not necessary.

Please also bear in mind that this is the first tutorial I've put together.

Shannon's Iron-On No-Sew Appliqué Tutorial

First things first, you need some materials.

- Fabric
- Steam-a-Seam
- Iron
- Something to stick your appliqué to
- Only if you want - embroidery thread and needle or sewing machine


For this tutorial, I chose to appliqué some apples on a pair of Darsie's tattered jeans. This is the fabric I chose to use and you can see a piece of the Steam-A-Seam next to it.



The Steam-a-Seam is basically two sheets of protective paper protecting the adhesive "dots". One sheet of the protective paper is very lightly adhered to the dots while the other paper is more strongly adhered. If you wanted to trace a design onto the Steam-a-Seam, you would trace a mirror image onto the paper with the stronger adhesion to the dots.



To transfer the dots onto my fabric, I peeled off the paper with the least amount of adhesion.



Hopefully you can see that the top piece of paper doesn't have dots and the lower paper does. Peel the top paper off and put the other paper, dot down, on the backside of your fabric.



Now, you are ready to iron the fabric to the Steam-a-Seam. Put your iron on the cotton setting and let it heat up. Once it is hot, simply put it on your fabric for approximately 15 seconds.



You have now adhered your fabric to the Steam-a-Seam and are ready to cut out your shapes.





You now have appliqués that are ready to be applied to your clothing or item. Easy right?

To apply the appliqué, simply peel off the back protective paper. What you will be left with is the fabric, the adhesive dots, and a repositionable adhesive that will help with keeping the appliqué in place while you fix it to the item.



Once the paper has been removed, simply place the appliqué where desired and apply your iron with the cotton setting chosen for approximately 15 more seconds.



And you end up with these:


Easy, right? At this point you could stitch around them or however with a sewing machine or hand stitch with embroidery thread. Of course, you could leave them as is.

Ok, so I promised a small contest and I'm holding myself accountable. If you leave a comment below and tell me what sort of sewing/craft tutorial you would like to see, you could win your own set of apple appliqués just like these (in fact, they are these).


Contest will end Monday, September 1 at 11:59pm.