The first appliques I ever made were on stockings “Mrs. Claus” made for College Boy, Princess and Angel Face. I didn’t know anything about applique, but I stumbled along and managed to do a fairly decent job.

Since then I’ve ahem… “Mrs. Claus” has made stockings for Jo-Bear, Z-Man, Little Guy, and Teacher. And grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, cousins, you name it. I think the only ones in our family who don’t have an appliqued stocking yet are Great Grandma and me - go figure!

I loved applique so much that I started making appliqued diapers… but that’s a story for another time. The point is that over the years I’ve made a LOT of appliques and learned a LOT about how to applique. Now I’d like to share that knowledge with all of you. Don’t be scared - if you can sew, you can applique! Besides, I’ll be with you every step of the way and if you run into problems you can contact me. So grab your fabric scraps and put on your creativity hat - you’ll be surprised how easy and addicting applique is!

Supplies

Obviously you’ll need basic sewing necessities like a sewing machine, scissors, thread, needles, pins, etc. In addition, you will also need:

• A regular pencil
• Plain or tracing paper
• An iron
• A water or air soluble marking pen or pencil
• Paper backed iron-on adhesive, like Heat n Bond™
• Tear away stabilizer, standard type
• Fabrics for the applique, prelaundered as the finished product will be laundered.

How to Applique - Step by Step

I did my best to explain each step thoroughly, but feel free to contact me if you’re confused about something.

1. Draw Your Applique Design
The first you need is a design to applique. A simple design with straight sides is easiest for beginners, so consider starting with a block, kite or star. If you’re an experienced seamstress you may want to try a design with curves, like a heart or balloon. I’m working on one of my elephant designs in the examples.

Either draw your design on the plain paper, or trace the design onto the tracing paper. Keep in mind that the finished applique will be a mirror image of your tracing.

2. Trace onto the Iron-On Adhesive
Place the iron-on adhesive on top of your design, paper side up, and trace your design onto the adhesive. If your design is made up of more than one element, like the elephant and heart, you will need to trace each section separately.

If there are sections next to each other, you need to decide which will go on top of the other. When tracing, extend the line of the bottom section about 1/4 inch where it touches the top one. This will allow you to layer the sections so there won’t be any gaps in between them.

3. Rough Cut the Design
After your design pieces are traced, you need to separate them from the rest of the adhesive. Cut around your tracing lines, about 1/2 to 1 inch away from the lines.

4. Choose Your Fabrics
This is one of my favorite steps - choose the fabric for each section. To make selecting easier I separate my fabrics into color families. Cotton woven fabrics are the easiest to work with, although you may want to experiment with other fabrics as you gain experience. Beware of fabrics that fray because they often shred when laundered, and thicker fabrics like corduroy or velvet may be too difficult for some machines to handle smoothly.

5. Fuse the Fabric to the Adhesive
Heat your iron according to the directions that came with the adhesive. When the iron is hot, place the preshrunk fabric right (front) side down on your ironing surface and press to remove any wrinkles. Be sure to put the side you want to use face down so you’re looking at the back of the fabric. Double and triple check before ironing - I can’t tell you how many times I wasn’t paying attention and fused the adhesive to the front of my fabric! Place the adhesive, paper side up, on the wrong (back) side of your fabric. Fuse according to the directions that came with your adhesive.

6. Cut out the Sections
Cut out each section, following the tracing lines carefully.

7. Remove the Adhesive Backing
Carefully peel the paper backing from the iron-on adhesive. If the backing is difficult to separate from the adhesive, tear the edge of the paper a little to get things started, or use a fingernail to separate the paper from the fabric.

8. Iron the Applique to Your Item
Place the applique, adhesive side down, on the item you’re going to apply it to and arrange the sections to match your pattern. If you have several pieces you may need to look at the pattern to remember how the sections fit together. When the applique looks the way you want it to, iron it down according to the directions that came with the adhesive.

9. Add Some Details
Using the water soluble pen or pencil, draw in any details you wish to add to the applique.

10. Stabilize with Interfacing
Cut a piece of tear-away interfacing large enough to cover the entire applique with a border of about 1/2 - 1 inch. Place the interfacing on the wrong side of the item you’re appliquing, under the applique. Now this part is a little tricky - holding the interfacing tightly, flip the item over and pin the interfacing on from the front. (You can see a pin in my next photo) If the item you’re appliquing is thin enough, you hold it up to a light to make sure the entire applique has interfacing behind it. If the item is too thick to see through you’ll have to check by feel.

11. Stitch Your Applique
Now comes the fun - stitching! Use a Satin stitch if your machine has it, otherwise use a Zig Zag stitch and decrease stitch length until the threads are sewn right next to each other. Most sewing machine manuals recommend loosening the top thread tension for applique work, but be sure to check your own machine’s manual for directions. Using a scrap piece of fabric, experiment with stitch width and length until you find an effect you like. You want the thread to go into the applique fabric on one side and into the background fabric on the other, so the raw (unstitched) edge of the applique is completely encased in thread. On my Viking I generally use a stitch length of .3 and a width of 3.5, but each machine is different so these numbers may not work for you. Once you find the stitch length and width you like, write them down somewhere so you don’t forget - the owner’s manual is a good place. Unless you tend to lose them like I do.

Line the applique up so the raw (unstitched) edge is in the middle of your presser foot and start stitching. Go slowly at first, until you gain some confidence. Slow down as you approach a curve or corner so you don’t overshoot the edge. There are several ways to turn corners; try different ways until you find one that works for you. The way I round a corner is by stitching to the end of the fabric until the thread is even with the bottom edge of the fabric. Then I sink the needle in the very outermost point of the corner, where the two sides meet. Raise the presser foot, leaving the needle sunk into the fabric, and pivot the fabric to the right so the raw edge is lined up in the middle of the presser foot. Lower the presser foot and continue sewing.

Curves are easier than corners, and wide curves may not require any pivoting. Stitch wide curves slowly so the stitches remain even. Sharp curves may require a pivot to keep the raw edge in the middle of the presser foot. When stitching an outer corner, like the outside of an O, stop with the needle down on the background fabric, then pivot just enough to line the raw edge up. When stitching an inner corner, like the inside of an O, stop with the needle down in the applique fabric and pivot just enough to keep the raw edge in the center of the presser foot.

Remember to stitch the details you marked earlier. I generally narrow my stitch width by one setting for inner details. Remember to backstitch whenever you begin and end stitching so your stitching doesn’t come out later. I realize this photo doesn’t show the raw edge in the center of the presser foot - I was about to pivot around the curve when I took the photo. See the pin holding the interfacing to the background fabric? Since taking this photo I’ve moved my pins to the edge of the applique so there aren’t any holes in the PUL.

12. Trim the Threads
Wen you’re all done stitching carefully trim the loose threads as close to the fabric as you can without cutting the fabric or stitching. I trim the font first because any tiny ends are usually pulled to the back when I grab those threads to trim them. Using a small, sharp scissors makes it easier to trim closely.

13. Remove the Interfacing
Remove the interfacing by tearing along the stitching. Your needle will have perforated the interfacing so it should come away fairly easily. Use a fingernail along the stitching to get things started, but do not use your scissors or anything sharp as it might poke through the applique. Don’t ask how I know this, it’s a tragic memory.

Congratulations - you’ve made your first applique! Now go show everyone what a fantastic applique you made, then send me a picture so I can see too. I hope you had as much fun doing applique work as I do!

Over the past few nights I’ve been working on websites and concentrating on code so hard that my brain hurts.

First I resumed customizing my blog template. The zeros in the blogroll have bugged me since I got the template but I don’t know php so trying to find them has been like looking for a needle in a haystack… blindfolded! In between failed attempts I made other to the template - it was that or throw my laptop out the window. I figured out how to delete “Posted by Admin” under every post title. Look above… see… it’s gone! Go me! And I figured out how to change the date so instead of “Oct 17th” it has the whole month and I added the year. See? Isn’t that much better? Go me again! And after many hours of work I finally figured out where those blasted zeros are coming from! Yippee!! Go go go me! Now I just need to find where that blasted code is, and delete it. Bwaa haa haa!

Secondly I discovered that almost all the Zany Zebra pages that had been indexed in Google totally disappeared since the last time I checked. There are only two lonely little pages sitting all alone in that huge white space and looking very sad. I spent hours trying to figure out why… and I’m still not sure. It seems to have something to do with the robots.txt file - that’s the file that tells robots what to do when they crawl the site - but I’m not sure what. Sigh. I do know that I need more incoming links so I finished a page that’s been almost-done for a while: How to Wash Cloth Diapers. Warning, shameless begging ahead… Check it out, and if you like it please consider linking to it. Pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top?

Then yesterday I discovered a site that had copied my Free Diaper Patterns page word for word. I was shocked! Shocked and a little flattered that someone liked my page enough to copy it. Here are screenshots to compare:

Pretty close, isn’t it? It actually was exact to my original page, but I’d made updates before discovering the copy. The funny thing is that they didn’t change anything so their page had a link to MY contact page!

I sent them a “cease and desist” email and they took their page down soon after. I’m glad I didn’t have to pursue it further, but I’ll keep an eye on things…

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Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving I want to take a moment to say how thankful I am for all of you, my family and friends. Thank you for taking time to read my thoughts, and for leaving comments so I know you’re out there. If you haven’t left a comment yet, what are you waiting for? Jump in and say something - I promise it won’t hurt a bit.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you have a wonderful day and can think of a ton of things to be thankful for.

Z-Man was running in circles around the kitchen and being an experienced Mom I know what that means.

Time to go potty!
I don’t have to go.

Go potty before you have an accident.
I don’t have to go potty!

Go quick before I eat all the M&Ms…
Silence

2 sec later…
I have to go potty!

Slap, slap, slap! Bare feet dash across the floor.
Click, the bathroom door opens.
Crash! the potty lid goes up.

Singing, I tinkle in the potty, I tinkle in the potty!

Woo hoo, good job sweetie!
I get M&Ms now?

Yup! Here ya go…
Big grin, Mmmmm….

We painted the girls’ room over Labor Day and I’ve been waiting for it to be clean enough to photograph. I finally decided that I’ll be old and grey before that happens so I threw everything into the closet to make it look good then took photos of the cleanest parts. A mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.

The room started out yellow and blue with a Tweety Bird/blue gingham theme. The girls were four and eight when we moved into our house and their favorite colors then were yellow and blue. Teacher used to call Princess “Tweety Bird” so the colors and theme fit them perfectly then.

But after eight years in Tweety World Princess and Angel Face decided they’d outgrown Tweety and wanted to redecorate. Teacher and I agreed to help but first they had to unearth their rug. And the tops of their dressers. And the floor under their beds. And the floor around their beds. And in front of their closet. And under the windows. And… Let’s just say they had a lot of work to do!

The girls agreed to clean their room and spent several weeks deciding on a color scheme. Eventually they decided on pink and green, but didn’t know what shade of pink and green. Teacher came to the rescue, bringing home one of each green and pink paint chip in the store. Princess and Angel Face then spent hours poring over the paint chips trying different combinations and comparing with the quilts their grandma is making them.

Finally they chose the perfect colors and had their room mucked out - Hallelujah! We got to work bright and early Saturday morning. Teacher was fast and had the room most of the way cleared out before my bleary eyes focused well enough to take a photo. I’m not a morning person.

Before:

The only unbroken wall was blue, the other three were yellow. The trim was cobalt blue and most of the windows were creme - except for the one we never got around to painting since we moved in.

You probably expect to see a “During” picture after the “Before picture. Sorry, I don’t have one. I was too busy painting or too comfy in the rocking chair to take photos. Close your eyes and use your imagination… picture a big plastic drop cloth, open paint cans, sweaty parents and giggly girls in paint-smeared clothes, a boom box blasting Queen… Yup, you’ve got it!

On Monday we went shopping for new sheets and other accessories. Our timing was perfect - all the college dorm stuff was on clearance so we got some great deals!

Rug:

I’d planned to trade the pine green rug from Jo-Bear and Z-Man’s room for the blue braided rug the girls used to have. But Teacher scored this one at 70% off. Teacher is a power shopper and can find deals like you wouldn’t believe - I love shopping with Teacher.

Bead Strings:

Teacher found these door beads for $5.00 a panel at Kohls. Amazingly, the colors went perfectly with the new paint. I altered the door beads for the windows by sliding them out of the hanging frame then cutting each string off the plastic strip they were wired to. I bought key chain rings large enough to go over our curtain rods to hang the beads from. After slipping the loop at the top of each string of beads onto a key ring I slid the ring over the curtain rod. Voila!

Curtains:

I found these lavender sheer panels online at JC Penney. They were on clearance for $7.00 a panel - Teacher’s not the only one who can find good deals!

Angel Face’s Side:

Angel Face loves green so we put lots of it on the wall by her bed. We drew the curves by tying a pencil to a long piece of string and using it like a huge compass to mark lines on the wall. We used different lengths of string to create the size of curves we needed for each space. It sounds like a lot of work but it was fun.

Princess’s Side:

Princess prefers pink so her side has lots of pink. The shelves on each wall were made by Teacher’s dad - he’s a super woodworker! Don’t mind the cat on the bed - she’s really not demonic, just skittish.

So that was our Labor Day weekend. It was lots of fun, and the girls’ new room is adorable. Now we just need to get the rest of their stuff out of College Boy’s room before he comes home from England!

The other morning Teacher took our three kitties to the vet - they hate the vet. One of them - I think it was Laelia - got really mad and decided to get us back. I was folding laundry and felt something wet - soaked actually. Being a mom I sniffed it. Why do moms always sniff things that normal people wouldn’t get near?

Eeeeewwwww! Definitely cat pee! Being a good wife I took it to Teacher, Does this smell like cat pee to you? I asked and thrust it into his face. He jumped back agreeing that it was definitely cat pee. I was NOT happy! This wasn’t any old laundry, it was cloth diapers - most of them my prize Fluffymail dipes that I need a 12 step program for because I’m so addicted to them. I took the basket downstairs and two washes and vinegar rinses I thought everything was fine.

But apparently Laelia wasn’t over her snit yet. Two days later the same load of laundry happened to be in the same place as it was when she peed on it the first time. When I went to fold the diapers there was a puddle of cat pee underneath the basket, spreading from the hardwood floor to the carpet and I could see that the diapers had been sprayed through the basket. Eeeeeewwwwww!! I cleaned up the floor and carpet according to the directions on how to rid of cat urine, threw the diapers back into the washer, and called the vet.

The vet said that it could be either a bladder infection or a behavioral issue and to figure out which it was we needed to isolate the cat we thought was the culprit, and get a urine sample. Get a what??! How do you get a urine sample from a cat? I had a mental picture of me chasing Laelia around with a test tube, trying to catch pee. And knowing her, she’d get mad about being isolated and pee all over anyway. Isolation wasn’t going to work for us.

While I was considering how to catch cat pee I started unpacking a box of fall decorations. I unwrapped some maize and was puzzled by the bare corncobs. Sure, our maize was several years old and a little banged up but I didn’t remember so many kernals missing when I put it away last year. And why weren’t there a bunch of loose kernals in the box? I unwrapped another bunch of half naked corn. The third bunch was totally bare. Suddenly a feeling of dread washed over me as I had an idea of where our corn had gone. I looked in the bottom of the box… sure enough there were mouse droppings. Tons of mouse droppings. Eeeeewwwwww!!!

I jumped back from the box, certain there was a mouse hiding somewhere in the box about to make a break for it. Or worse, a DEAD mouse! Gingerly I poked under the turkey wreath Angel Face made in Pre-Kindergarten… no mouse. I poked at a stuffed ghost Jo-Bear made years ago, imagining a mouse sleeping cozily inside. Holding back a whine I grabbed a tongs from the kitchen drawer and poked the ghost harder. No mouse. Whew! One by one I removed the decorations from the box with the tongs: witch, bat and black cat made from squashed cans; wire spiderweb basket, wooden witch for the front door, votive candle holders… eventually all the decorations were strewn on the table. There was no mouse in site - dead or alive. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and took the box outside to dump the droppings into the grass.

Now I just have to figure out if there are still mice in the attic, and what to do if there are. Teacher and I don’t want to use poison because we don’t want it in the house with all the kids. Traps have to be checked and emptied - not something I want to do! The perfect solution? Isolate Laelia in the attic and let her take care of the mice!

Note: No cats were actually put in the attic *on purpose* although Kippy did sneak up there once and was locked in for a couple of hours. But that’s another story…

Moms will do anything to keep their kids safe - ANYTHING! I discovered how strong this instinct is one night when three-year-old College Boy started screaming in his bath.

College Boy was a wonderful little boy, smart and happy-go-lucky… I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I like the sound of it. He wasn’t one to see monsters under the bed or to be afraid of new places or things.

When he was three we lived in a small two-bedroom apartment that had the bathroom basically in the middle. I could easily hear College Boy playing in his bath from anywhere in the apartment so I often put him in the tub and listened while I worked. One night while he was taking a bath I was listening to him from the living room when suddenly he started screaming hysterically Mommy! Moooommmyyy!! Mmmmoooommmmyyyy!!! There was screaming and crying and splashing and more screaming and more crying.

I flew across the living room and into the bathroom so quickly that I barely remember moving; suddenly I was standing at the bathroom door. I looked around frantically for blood, guts, whatever it was that was hurting my baby.

College Boy was standing in the tub, tears streaking down his face, his eyes wild and his hands stretched toward me. Taking two quick steps into the bathroom I reached my hands out to him, anxious to take whatever it was that was hurting him. Give it to Mommy! I held out my hands for… a pile of poop! Eeeeeewwwwwww!! My firstborn had just started potty training and pooping in the tub scared the heck out of him.

I stood in the middle of the bathroom staring at a handful of poop; grossed out but glad that my baby was OK. I flushed the poop, obsessively washed my hands, then drained and scrubbed the tub. After a good scrub-down in a fresh bath and some cozy jammies, College Boy and I settled in the rocker to read books before bed.

He was none the worse for wear. I learned to take a second to look before holding out my hands.

Recently I took some frozen juice concentrate out of the refrigerator to mix up for snack time. The snack was one of the kids’ favorites: apple juice and goldfish crackers. I put it the concentrate into the microwave to defrost, and as I turned away I saw something strange out of the corner of my eye. I looked right, then left, then up, and there it was - a huge tumor growing out of the kitchen ceiling! It was round and about the same size and shape as our large Corelle serving bowls. Actually, it looked like someone had stuck a Corelle serving bowl under the paint. I was dumbfounded and stared at it for a minute. Then I did what any sane almost-40 yr old married woman would do… I called my daddy!

Hi Dad, are you busy? Could you come by for a minute? There’s something weird happening under the paint in the kitchen, it looks like something is leaking somewhere maybe… could you take a peek at it please? Horror washed over me as I realized the tumor was under the upstairs bathroom toilet!

I may not have mentioned this before, but I’m the luckiest woman in the world because my parents live just 2 doors down from us. Not only is it great visiting each other and spending time together, it’s really handy for emergencies like tumors growing out of the kitchen ceiling. About two minutes after I called my Dad was walking in the door. After giving each of the children including the daycare children a big bear hug he went into the kitchen to look at the tumor. He took a quick peek then went upstairs to check out the situation in the bathroom. I was very thankful I’d picked up the piles of dirty socks and wet towels that morning and taken a minute to wipe down the counter and toilet. Mom and Dad’s bathrooms are always spotless so I would have died of embarrassment if Dad had seen our usual pigsty.

There were bumps and scrapes coming from the ceiling as I stirred up the juice, helped the kids wash their hands and got them seated at the table for snack. But it didn’t take Dad long to see what was going on; he was back downstairs before the kids had dished out their crackers.

Dad put a bucket underneath the tumor, then poked it with the pointy head of a Phillips screwdriver. That’s the one with an X. I learned that from my Daddy. Water poured out of the hole into the bucket, then slowed to a steady trickle.

As water filled the bucket, Dad went back upstairs and I kind of lost track of what he was doing. From snack time to 5:00 it’s pretty crazy around herd. There’s snack and handwashing, cleaning up from snack, my kids fresh home from school wanting to talk to me, parents coming to pick up their children, trying to clean up the playroom, getting dinner started, etc. I did keep an eye on the tumor as it slowly shrunk.

And shrunk…

And shrunk.

This is what it looks like now. Some day we’ll cut out the bad paint and fix it, but for now the bucket is staying there just in case.

Dad told me what happened… Apparently some screw cracked a while ago and the sticky stuff inside slowly shrunk until it couldn’t keep it from leaking anymore. There was something about the intake valve to, but I don’t remember what that was all about. I just know that Dad replaced the broken parts and put a bucket underneath so I could check for leaks over the next day or two. So far it’s been dry as a bone.

My Dad is the BEST!

Little Guy dressed as a zebra, of course! The costume was warm, but I still made him wear a sweatshirt outfit and jacket underneath the zebra coat. The poor boy couldn’t move his arms but I fed him M&Ms along the way so he was happy. He loves M&Ms just like his mommy.

Here’s Z-Man in our driveway. I told everyone he was going as himself. It’s true - sometimes he is a little devil!

We went to Uncle Jon’s first - he lives just 2 1/2 blocks away - and I begged him to come along with us. Are you SURE you don’t want to come too? You don’t really want to paint the ceiling, it’ll still be there tomorrow… the boys would love to have you along…” I whined until he gave in. He gave me a bunch of Halloween candy too - the good stuff like Snickers and Crunch and Reeces Cups, yum!! I love my brother!

Here’s Uncle Jon with the boys. Ladies - he’s tall, smart, funny, handsome, and SINGLE! Ignore the smudge at the top and the bluish coloring - the camera was in my pocket and I didn’t notice it was on a weird setting when I took the photo. I’m such a dork.

Teacher couldn’t Trick or Treat because had to work at Pottery Barn, but he dressed as a hippie for his classroom party. The wig is even scarier in real life than in the photo! When Teacher first put it on Little Guy took one look and shrieked in fear; he wouldn’t go near his dad until the wig came off and then he wouldn’t go near the wig.

Jo-Bear was going to be “Luke Skywalker X-wing Pilot” until he got a Peyton Manning jersey for his birthday. He changed his mind and decided to be Peyton Manning, which was much easier to put together than Skywalker. Can you believe that Matt is the same age as Jo-Bear? He’s an adorable cowboy! Did I mention Uncle Jon loves kids?

Angel Face was going to go as a cowBOY so Teacher and I got her a big furry black mustache but then Angel Face changed her mind. I think the mustache scared her.

Princess and her friends dressed as gypsies. I told them I wouldn’t give them a treat until they showed me a trick. I won’t make that mistake again, who knew teenage girls could be so scary?!

Here’s Princess with her normal face on. She’s not as scary now.

It was a fun Halloween, now I just need to stay away from the kids’ candy bags. I hope you all had a Happy Halloween and got lots and lots of chocolate.