How to effectively use HeatnBond Feather Lite and Pressing Paper

All this week I’ll discuss some useful, versatile fuse and sew products brought to you by HeatnBond that allow you to add appliques to your projects with ease. These fusible products make your sewing easier to execute and embellished so that they look professionally sewn. You’ll learn easy applique, foundation paper piecing, an alternate to pinning and lamination using fusible products. Some very interesting methods to be discussed.

Today, I’m excited to talk about HeatnBond Feather Lite and Pressing Paper.

HeatnBond Feather Lite is a product that’s lightweight and can be fused to the reverse side of fabric without making the fabric stiff. HeatnBond Feather Lite has been my go-to fusible product when working with fabric appliques for many years for the following reasons:

• It’s a strong bonding iron-on adhesive and super effective at holding appliques to your fabric surface.
• You can sew into it and it doesn’t leave a sticky residue on your machine needles.
• It’s paper backed, so you can draw your appliqué shape right onto the paper backing.
• Keeps your fabric feeling soft and won’t add extra weight or stiffness to your project.
• It works great with appliques with many layers, great for quilting, sewing and home decor projects.
• It’s washable.

It’s essential when using any fusible product involving your iron that you protect the base of your iron and your ironing surface because if the glue hits a hot surface it will melt and stick. I use Pressing Paper and find this product awesome as it stops any glue residue from making contact with my hot iron and my ironing station. This Pressing Paper is non-stick, transparent (so you can see the design placement through it) and it’s reusable over and over.

A great project idea to make using HeatnBond Feather Lite and Pressing Paper, is the Classic Baby Bib using fun appliques. This is the ideal applique project for those who have never attempted applique before. It makes a great gift for a baby shower or for the beautiful babies in your life.

materials

• HeatnBond Feather Lite
• Pressing Paper
• 1 fat quarter of fabric (front of bib) – Northcott Fabric Stonehenge Kids Undersea 3D was used in this post
• terry towel, minky or flannel (back of bib) – 10” x 14” piece
• scrap of fabric for applique
• thread to match for applique and bib fabric
• pattern for baby bib available for free download here
• applique designs available for free download here
• applique foot for your sewing machine.
• needle down position on your sewing machine (optional but helpful)
• zigzag stitch on your machine or decorative stitch
• iron set on cotton and no steam
• pins
• scissors (paper and sewing)

• Trace your applique designs onto the paper backing of the HeatnBond Feather Lite using a pencil and the free designs provided or one of your choosing. There are lots of copyright free designs on the internet.

• Cut out your design roughly and cut out a piece of applique fabric in the same size.

• Lay the glue side down of the design onto the wrong side of the fabric and place the Pressing Paper shiny side down on top of this. With the iron set to cotton and no steam, press the design holding down for about 10 seconds with a Pressing Paper on top to protect the iron and ironing surface.

• Cut your design out accurately now using the drawing on the paper side of the HeatnBond Feather Lite and tear away the paper backing. The wrong side of the applique will be shiny with a layer of glue.

• Center the applique design onto the bib front (right side of applique facing up) and when satisfied with placement, place a piece of Pressing Paper on top of the bib (shiny side down), press and hold for about 10 seconds. Check to see if applique is glued to bib front, if not press again.

• Applique the design any way you like! I used a small zigzag stitch and went over it twice to make it look natural just like a frog in the pond.

• Pin the front of bib and back of bib right sides together leaving about a 2” gap on the side for turning.

• Stitch with a ¼” seam allowance all around the bib, engage needle down at narrow neck back and go slow to be accurate and pivot around. Leave a 2” gap.
• Remove pins and trim seam allowance to ⅛”, clip corners and curves and turn to the right side through the gap.

• Press the bib, close in the gap with hand stitches and top stitch ¼” all around the edge of your bib. Add Velcro or a snap closure and admire your efforts. Your little people and parents/grandparents will love it!

Come on back tomorrow when I discuss how to use HeatnBond EZ Print Lite. I’ll show you how to use your printer to draw out fusible applique designs for you.

More design options equals so much fun!