How I applique on minky

I bought a sewing/embroidery machine a little over a year ago.  The Sophia 2 by Babylock.  I was so excited about having an embroidery machine and I've used it to applique letters several times.  However, it only has the option of a 4x4 area to embroider in.  That is not large enough applique names, only 1 letter at a time.

And I'm also a Mac person and the embroidery software for a Mac is too pricey for me.  So I can't combine patterns.  I would have to do one letter, unhoop and rehoop the fabric, do the second letter and so on.  I feel like letting the machine do the appliqueing was limiting the things I could be doing with my "creations."

This being said, I am thankful that I learned how to sew on the simplest of sewing machines and had to learn how to applique manually before being spoiled by the machine doing it for me.  I've been appliqueing quite a bit lately and I've come to realize that I like the old fashioned way.  I'd rather not have the machine just do each letter and I cut the fabric around it.  I prefer cutting out the fabric and then stitching around it and guiding the fabric by hand.  I can also take more pride in my work doing it this way.

With cotton quilting fabric or knit fabric, I like to use "Heat 'n bond" and iron the fabric I will be appliqueing on to the main fabric.  You can't do this with minky because minky does not like heat.  Especially dimple dot minky.  So I figured out how it worked best for me and here it is.

I printed out the letters that I wanted to applique in Word.  I didn't feel like taking the time to research how to print them off in reverse so I just printed them out regular, flipped the paper over and traced the back of the paper with a sharpie.  Then I traced that onto the paper backing of the Heat 'n bond.  Iron that on to the fabric to be appliqued and cut the letters out.  Normally you would then pull the paper backing off and iron it on to your main fabric like I did for the dance bags.

This is where it is different when sewing with minky...I used Fabri Tac glue.  I put a thin line of glue along the middle of each of the letters then placed the letters on the main fabric.  After about 10 minutes, the glue should be dry enough that the letters won't move around on you.

To the sewing machine.  I used a zigzag stitch.  I had stitch width at 4 and stitch length at 0.7.  I prefer a smaller stitch length so that the zigzags are closer together.  You could even go lower than that.  0.5 is a really tight zigzag on my machine.

I was very pleased with how this quilt turned out all together...I can't wait to see the baby's pictures on it.

I've used this method of gluing the letters on to the minky several times now and I've washed the items as well and I'm quite pleased with how well the glue holds the letters in place while I stitch around the outside.  Also, the glue doesn't gum up the needle since the glue is in the middle of the letter and not near where the needle goes in to the fabric.

Hope someone finds this helpful and I promise to work on my photography skills so that it will be easier on your eyeballs :)
-maryanna aka MarvelousAuntieM

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