How to Applique – Elastic Waist Skirt

Learn how to us iron on appliques on your clothing.  Super easy to add a bit of pizzazz to your clothes!

The last couple of weeks I have focused on the elastic waist skirt– and you learned my hem tape hem trick and a super easy skirt tutorial {used for my 9 year old}, and then again with a patchwork skirt.

Today I thought we’d hit a fun way to doll it up!  I mean, super cute fabric is one way of making the skirt cute, but another is adding a little bit whimsy or fun to it.

An easy way to add interest is by learning how to applique on your clothing {of in our case, super cute skirts}

For both of these appliques, I decided that raw edge applique was the way to go.  I love this method. Super quick and easy.  The edge will soften up and ravel a little bit adding a little whimsy to the clothes.

For the skirt that I started off with I took inspiration off of the print that was already there– the flowers.  I did freehand the applique template, and added a spiral to the one flower.  The leaves were also added for design sake.   The other skirt- same thing. I cut a flower out that was the same design style as the pattern on the fabric.  I was lucky to have co-ordinating fabric and use it, and one of the prints was circles, so I used that for the center of the flower.  How easy it that?!  I found that it kind of dissapeared into the skirt so I cut a second flower just a little larger out of darker fabric so it stood out more.

Materials needed:

glue stick

fabric scraps

How to us iron on appliques you design~

1. Cut out your shapes using your fabric as a guide or inspiration.  If you are sewing the raw edge applique method, your edges don’t need to be perfect.
2. Dab a little bit of glue onto the back of the fabric pieces to keep them in place while stitching
3. Stitch 1/8″ from the edge all the way around the shape.  Start with the bottom piece and add the other pieces layered on top
4. Rub the edges with a tooth brush or your finger.  You can give it a little squirt of water to make the ravel process be a bit quicker

The glue stick glue will wash out and doesn’t gum up your sewing machine needle. I have mine on hand all the time.  It’s easy to reposition later too if needed {won’t pull your fabric}.

If you are looking for adding applique and having it a more finished style, you might want to zig-zag the edges or do a machine satin stitch to give it a nice finished edge.  A Button hole stitch would work fine too.

Go with your imagination here.  Take a hint from the print of the fabric like I did for what to applique.  I have seen some super cute appliques with animals, stars, other shapes.  Layering your fabric in the design will give it more interest too.

Don’t forget to check out the other posts in this series-

   

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