new plush making tutorial series! this 3 part series covers doing applique with your embroidery machine. even if you don’t have an embroidery machine you can pick up some tips from part 1 and 3!
So I recently learned the proper term for this shit. It’s called an applique, and you can very simply make your own instead of using a precut one.
So what is an applique you ask? Probably the most helpful thing anyone in cosplay can learn besides the basic art of sewing. An applique is a symbol, picture, shape, or whatever, which is top stitched onto a garment. You can find them at the local craft store (and, around here anyway, at walmart). Usually they’re cut into little cutesy things: dogs, apples, bows, ect. They’re sorta stiff, like interfacing, so you can sew it onto the fabric without it getting all crinkly.
But, for my purpose, I knew that there wouldn’t be an applique cut into the shape I needed for this particular cosplay (or probably any cosplay, honestly).
So I had to make my own; and here’s what you do:
Materials:
Shirt / Garment Fabric, cut out already
Applique Fabric
Stiffener: Heat N’ Bond is preferred, but really stiff interfacing will work as well.
Pins
Sewing Machine
Iron
Step 1: Make a template for your applique.
I was making a Dirk Strider God Tier shirt, so it was easy for me to just go online and print one.
This was mine. Cut out of printer paper. NBD what you cut it out of. Just get a template.
Step 2: Gather your stiffener.
To keep the applique from getting wrinkly while you sew it, you have to make whatever fabric you chose stiff. The only fabrics that do this on their own are ones with rigid textures, such as canvas, certain types of faux leather, and twill. Anything like that you can probably just sew straight on with pins and it should be fine. That said, attaching a stiffener still can’t hurt. I prefer Heat N’ Bond. Depending on where you buy it, it will be packaged differently. I have seen it packaged in rolls like this:
But mine I bought at walmart and it was packaged on a bolt. Like so:
It doesn’t matter which kind you buy. It’ll be the same thing regardless. These, like interfacing, come in different weights. This one is lite, and it worked fine for me. I haven’t tried the heavy one, but I’m sure it also would work.
Heat N’ Bond comes with two different textures on each side. One side is rough and shiny, and the other has a paper backing. The rough side will go on the WRONG side of your fabric. This matters only if your design isn’t symmetrical (like mine). If your design isn’t symmetrical then you need to make sure that your design is cut out backwards out of the Heat N’ Bond so when you attach it to the wrong side of the fabric, and flip it, it’ll be the correct direction. (I made this mistake myself, and it’s a pain).
My design is BACKWARDS on the Heat N’ Bond. At this point I had already cut it out, but you get the picture. Dont forget direction guys. Also, don’t use fabric scissors because it can fuck them up. Use some regular scissors to cut this stuff out, guys.
Step 3: Cut your design out of fabric.
If your fabric is the same on both sides, depending on your design, you may be able to just flip it and it won’t matter. Just be conscious of how you’re cutting things out.
Step 4: Attaching the Heat N’ Bond.
Heat n Bond irons on. Place your rough side of the Heat N Bond against the wrong side of the applique fabric. Your iron should be on a medium heat, and you should NOT use steam. Not sure why, but the moisture fucks up the adhesive. I tried it. Don’t steam your heat n’ bond.
The best method for this is to just set your iron on it. Rubbing it around doesn’t help too much, and it’s best to just leave the iron on the fabric and let the fabric and the adhesive set. It only takes a couple minutes. When done, allow fabric to cool.
Step 5: Peel the paper backing off of the newly adhered fabric.
When you peel it off, the wrong side of the fabric should now look shiny, and feel somewhat like a gel. This is because the Heat N’ Bond irons a second time. This is when you put your design on your garment fabric. Mine is a shirt, so as you can see, my fabric is laying right there. Put your symbol wherever you would like. I don’t know what y’all are making so it’s different for everyone. But if you can help it, make sure you haven’t sewn your garment together yet. Doing the next phase will be 20 million times easier if you haven’t.
Step 6: Iron that shit on.
Same technique. The gel side is face down against your garment, and you just iron it on again. I was watching some good old Dark Knight while waiting on mine.
Step 7: Cleaning up the edges.
I don’t know about you guys, but my cutting skills aren’t perfect. My edges are’t terribly smooth, so I like to silk stitch mine into place. If you don’t want to do this, don’t bother with the rest of my tutorial. Just do a running stitch around the edges to make sure you’ve tacked it down really well and you’re done!
For those of you like me, you’ll want to clean up the edges. By silk stitching.
Silk stitching is basically a really really tight zigzag stitch. Most sewing machines I have encountered in my life are able to do this.
On my machine the zigzag stitch is stitch 4. On yours it may be different. If you’re unsure, check your manual. I’m sure it’ll tell you how to get to it.
When setting up the silk stitch, you want to decrease the stitch LENGTH. The height you want to leave fairly high to medium size or else your silk stitch will be teeny tiny. Put your stitch LENGTH on its lowest setting. Mine is 1.0.
Depending on the fabric, you may have to adjust this. My fabric was thin and stretchy, so I ended up having to move mine to 2.0 so my fabric wouldn’t bunch up. To test this, use a scrap sheet of the fabric you’re sewing on before moving to the final project.
If your fabric is bunching up, try loosening the tension, or making your stitch slightly larger.
Make sure your bobbin is FULL. Silk stitching takes A LOT OF THREAD. You’ll be glad you filled it before you started.
Silk stitches are a bit slow and tedious, bit it will cover your edges pretty well. When turning a corner on your design, make sure your needle is on the OUTSIDE of the corner, in the fabric, then turn your fabric in the desired direction and resume sewing.
It should look something like this when you’re done.
Tadha!! All done!
Remember; silk stitching works best on non stretchy fabrics (unlike mine), so if you think you’re going to be doing this, try to get a mid weight fabric.
If you've ever worked with velvet, you've realized that velvet is a giant pain because of the pile-or fuzz. Because of the pile and the somewhat fragile nature of velvet, you cannot iron it. This means you can't use iron on binding to hold down an appliqué. And if you try to satin stitch, the bits of pile will come up through the thread and make it look very unclean.
This was an issue I tackled with my Zelda Cape. She had this amazing design on the back and I needed to get it settled. So with a little experimentation and some different tools, I was able to come up with a nice method of doing clean and easy appliqué on velvet!
