When browsing sewing blogs lately I’ve been struck by the
pretty effects achieved by appliqué. Especially machine appliqué – while I love
handcraft, I feel I have enough multi-year heirloom quality projects on the go,
and would rather like some relatively instant gratification instead.
I’m not very experienced with using sewing machines. While I
certainly learnt enough from mum to be bored in home-ec at school, it’s not
something I’ve used much since I was 14 or so. I confess I had a tendency to
get very frustrated whenever the project went awry, or, more commonly, I
somehow jammed the machine yet again. While yelling at your sewing machine may at
times seem essential, none of my family seemed to appreciate it! In fact, my sister often got so sick of it
she’d wander along and finish off my projects after I’d stormed off in a huff. Still,
I think I have a bit more patience now – or at least am better at taking a
break before I start shouting – so have recently waded into the waters of
machine sewing once again. It’s surprisingly fun.
After the obligatory apron to get me back in the swing of machining, I’ve moved on to some simple appliqué. I saw this great idea for using an old fitted sheet to make a simple skirt, and have made a skirt each for both nieces. They’re entirely from scraps – the blue appliqué material offcuts from a beautiful summer dress my sister made me and the red and green from our box of scraps.
The silhouettes are from a series of handy little stencil
books I have, though I just made up the grass. I think that these dinosaurs are adorable. Next sewing project is
an appliqué skirt for myself, featuring even more pterodactyls – doesn’t
everyone want a skirt covered in pterodactyls?
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