Letter Appliqué – The Easy Way

I think most of us who have made more than a few quilts have had the occasion to make a baby quilt. Baby quilts are perfect for adding a name or initials. I like to use appliqué to add these letters.

What is appliqué? This process involves cutting out a letter or shape and sewing it in place by sewing around the edges. There are several techniques for this.

You can easily do the appliqué without a special sewing machine. A simple zig zag stitching is great for securing the appliqués to your quilt. This does take practice and you need to be patient and go slow. The appliqué I did for this project is about as simple as it gets.

For this technique, we are going to appliqué the letters to our quilt top BEFORE we baste and quilt it. This will allow you to use your quilting to help secure the letters. It’s perfectly acceptable to appliqué the letters onto a finished quilt, but that’s not what I’m showing in this post.

You won’t have to:

Cut the letters out just to turn them around backwards, trace them onto the fabric, and cut them out again.

Worry about figuring out how to get your computer/printer to reverse the letters for you. This part actually isn’t that time consuming once you figure out how to do it, but it’s still one extra step to deal with.

Pay extra for the sheets of interfacing that can go in your printer. The interfacing is a lot cheaper per square inch if you buy the larger pieces.

Use the zig zag stitch to secure the letters unless you want to.

Supplies

1. Printer and paper
2. A double sided fusible interfacing. I use Heat N Bond Lite. DO NOT use Heat N Bond Ultra. It’s not meant for sewing through. I’ve done it before to test it, and it did not go well.
3. A permanent marker. I use Crayola Take Note Permanent Markers.
4. Some fabric for your letters.

Steps

There are two types of paper I’ll be referring to in these steps: the paper that’s on the back of the interfacing and the paper I printed my letters on. To avoid confusion I will refer to these as the interfacing paper and the printer paper.

1. Print your letters. I just use Microsoft Word to get the letters. Choose a font and type out the letters you want to print. Make your font bold so that it will show throw your interfacing better. This will make sense in the next step. I like to set my margins to match the size of the block or area where I want the letters to fit. Then highlight the letters and increase the font until it takes up the amount of space you want it to. Print your letters. No need to worry with trying to reverse the letters first.

2. Rough cut your interfacing to the size needed to cover your letters. I like to leave a few inches around the edges. Place the printer paper on a hard, flat surface, letter side up. Put you interfacing on top of the printer paper with the interfacing paper side down and the clear, textured side of the interfacing up. I use some painters’ tape on the edges to stabilize the interfacing for tracing in the next step. In the picture below, you can see that the letters show through well.

3. Trace your letters using permanent marker. You will be tracing onto your interfacing. I actually like to trace just outside of the letters so that more of the space inside the letter is useable. I know I keep saying this, but this will also make sense in the next step. Be careful not to smudge your ink into the inside of the letters. If you do accidentally smudge it, it could show through if you use light fabric for your letters. It’s best to just go slow and wait a few seconds to allow one letter to dry before tracing the next one. I actually did smudge my letters in the picture below, but the smudge was to the outside of the letters. So, that part got cut off anyway.

4. Un-tape the two papers. I just cut the corners with the tape off, and the rest of the interfacing paper isn’t stuck to the printer paper anyway. Removing the tape by peeling it back will probably separate the exposed side of the interfacing from the interfacing paper so this is why I cut it off. I may have made that mistake the first time I tried this… You want the interfacing to stay stuck to the interfacing paper until after you have all of the letters cut out.

5. Now it’s time to fuse the interfacing to the fabric that you want to use for your letters. Use a piece of fabric that is a little bit larger than the interfacing. Place the fabric so that it is right side down on your ironing board. Place the interfacing on the fabric with the interfacing paper side up. Use your iron to press over the interfacing paper and fuse it to the fabric.

6. You can now cut out your letters. Leave the interfacing paper on the backside of your interfacing for now. It gives a little more structure that makes it easier to cut accurately. I like to cut from the front side of the fabric. From this side, the letters will look correct instead of backwards. You can see in the picture below that it is still pretty easy to see the markings through the light fabric. If you use dark fabric for the letters you may not be able to see the letters through the fabric, so just cut from the other side with the interfacing paper on it.

You may want to rough cut around each letter first. They will be easier to cut if they are in separate pieces. Cut inside your markings. The letters were traced directly onto the interfacing. So if you accidentally leave any of the marking in your letters they could should show through the fabric. You don’t want this. It’s worth noting, that if the fabric for your letters is dark enough, this may not matter anyway.

7. After you have your letters cut out, remove the interfacing paper from the back of the interfacing. Lay the letters onto the area where you want them. Be sure you have them centered and spaced the way you like before you press. Once the interfacing fuses, it could damage the fabric to try to remove them. Use your iron to press each letter until it fuses. This will hold them in place when you go to sew them down in the next step.

It’s worth noting that I made my quilt top first and then secured the letters. But, you could also secure the letters to the specific block before you piece the quit.

8. If you are comfortable using a zig zag stitch (or any decorative stitch you choose) you can do that. In this post, I’m showing the applique with just a straight stitch near the edges of the letters. I’m using my open toe satin stitch foot so that it’s easier to see what I’m doing. Pick a thread color that matches your letters really well and sew near the edges of the letters. You’ll want to go slow, but I feel like the straight stitch doesn’t have to be a slow as a zig zag stitch would need to be. You can trim any stray threads from the letter fabric after you’ve appliqued all of the letters. I like to use my seam ripper to pull the thread tail from the top down to the back of the quilt and tie it off rather than backstitching. The idea of backstitches unraveling in the wash is one of my many neurotic quilting fears.

9. After you get all of your letters appliquéd, baste your quilt. You can use the quilting to further secure those letters. I like to quilt with thread that matches the letters. If you can free motion quilt, it makes it really easy to place your quilting in the spots where you need it to secure the letters. You can definitely still use straight line quilting to help further secure your letters, but just be sure your quilting is dense enough.

So, that’s it. The letters are in place, and I have them further secured with the quilting. Here’s a few pictures of the finished quilt for anyone who just likes to look at quilt pictures.