Intro to Applique - a quilt tutorial for beginners with Jenny Doan

Hi it’s Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. We’re here to talk about appliqué. For some of you that’s an overwhelming term, but I want to show you how easy it is, and how quickly you can do it. This first example is a little pieced quilt with Yo-Yos on it.

Even though a Yo-Yo doesn’t look like an appliqué piece, you attach it the same way that you do with appliqué. Appliqué is any time you attach something on top of your base fabric. It’s not pieced in, it’s actually on top. Let’s look at some other examples. These are Dresden plates, for those of you who know me; you know I’m a little Dresden crazy. These are again attached on top of the fabric, you use the same stitch, and so if you’re sewing any of these little things on like this, you are already appliquéing. This piece right here I have sewn on with the sewing machine. That’s machine appliqué. It’s just as easy as that.

So let’s look here. This is a different process. This is a process known as needle turn appliqué. You can’t see any of the stitches on top; it’s still done by hand. This type of appliqué starts to look a little bit more overwhelming. This is actually for a quilt I’m working on. Jan Patek teaches here with us, and she does a lot of needle turn appliqué, and this is for a quilt that I am working on for one of her classes, and it’s all little hand-sewn pieces under there. It begins to look a little overwhelming under there, but you have to
remember, it’s one piece at a time, one little block at a time, it’s not hard at all.

Here’s one of Jan’s quilts that’s a little more intimidating, but again, it’s one little star, and seriously, when you learn with the needle turn appliqué when you are doing it by hand and sewing it with needle and thread, when you learn to do a point and you learn to do a curve, there isn’t anything you can’t do in appliqué.

Now this right here looks like a fun really cute stand alone little baby quilt made with a jellyroll, but look what happens when we add this little appliqué on the bottom. This is machine appliqué, and we’ve added some sailboats on here, and it adds an entirely different element. It is absolutely adorable.
We’ve just machine stitched across this with a buttonhole stitch. You can use any kind of stitch, and it adds so much to this darling little quilt.

We hope you enjoyed this quick overview on appliqué from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.