Applique tip

I got as close as I think I'm going to get today to my sewing day. There was still far too much housework done, but on my rare baby free day I did manage to get in a few good hours of sewing.

All of my baby free sewing day was spent sewing for my baby though, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Today's tip comes from the School of Trial and Error.

When you want to use applique to put a design onto something, make sure you match the thread to the design, not the background. I've done plenty of applique before, but I've never notices this before. I must have always matched the thread to the design by chance, or maybe I haven't used such an obvious colour contrast before.

In this case I was making a bit for a friend's baby girl, Rochelle. The design is an 'R' in navy with small white flowers on a yellow bib, and I used yellow thread to do the applique. Didn't work well.

It's too easy to see though the applique and all the threads. I went over it again with a wider stitch and a shorter stitch, but it didn't improve much.

The navy design is still peeking through the light coloured thread.

I was able to finish the bib and I still think it looks sweet, but after that I switched to matching the thread colour to the design. I made several other bibs and shirts doing this, and it stopped the peek-through a lot more.

Here's the final bib, all ready to get wrapped up and drooled on!