Easy way to appliqué with your Silhouette

Appliqué on fabric - one of my favorite ways to embellish a quilt, a pouch or just about anything that is fabric. There are many techniques used for the same purpose, however achieving slightly different results. After piecing my hexie patchwork and applying heat transfer to the top I decided this mini quilt would make a perfect placemat! Nothing like making a matching napkin holder with the remnant fabric! So go get some pretty fabric and your Silhouette cause we’ll be doing appliqué today!

Supplies:

• Silhouette Machine
• Pixscan mat
• Patterned fabric remnant containing a well defined image that will form the appliqué (for example a flower.
• Fabric Starch
• Chipboard (a little larger than the design you wish to turn into appliqué). If you'd like to make more than one applique, cut an even larger piece (like I did).

How to prepare the appliqué:

• Place the fabric that will be used as an appliqué on the Silhouette Pixscan mat, along with the piece of chipboard. 
• Take a picture with your phone. Bellow is mine;

• Save the picture from the phone to your desktop.
• Open up Silhouette Studio.
• Click on the Pixscan icon (third one from left to right on the top tool bar) and select "import from file". Click on the button "Import Pixscan image from file".  It should automatically appear on your screen. If it doesn’t, it may ask you to take another picture showing all the registration marks. I had to do this a few times only to realize that there was a shadow being cast on the registration marks, even though they were visible in the picture. Moral of the story: make sure you take a picture in which all registration marks appear AND it is well lit without any shadows. 
• Use the “trace” tool over the part of the fabric that you want to show, you may need to do a little “point editing” to get the clean cut line. 

• Place this cutline on the piece of chipboard. 
• Delete ANY cutline that is on top of the fabric. Draw a few circles in the middle of the design (you will understand this step later) 

• Load the Pixscan into Silhouette, adjust cut settings and cut!

• Pin the chipboard to the WRONG side of your fabric, using the holes you created. 
• Cut the fabric around the chipboard with scissors giving a ¼’’ allowance and clipping where needed. 

• Lightly Spray Ironing Starch to the piece (chipboard side up). With the tip of the iron, turn the edges of the fabric so that it covers the chipboard. 

• Remove the chipboard with the help of a crochet hook, being careful not to completely unfold the edges that were created. 
  

• Iron the piece carefully. Even if some edges come undone, you can always push them back in with the help of the needle, once you start appliquéing. Now it is ready to be sewn with invisible stitches onto anything you like!

I used this appliqué on a napkin ring to go with the placemats and I love how they pair up well together! I will leave you with some eye candy pictures and hope you come back next week for a tutorial on assembling the napkin ring! Follow me on facebook or instagram so you don’t miss a thing. Have a lovely week ahead!