Mini templates create perfect applique shapes

The fun part is here! Not that piecing and quilting aren’t fun but I do enjoy making designs with applique and today I’m going to use four different shapes to create some applique. These mini templates create perfect applique shapes for my charming Christmas runner.

Yesterday I quilted the runner with straight stitching and vertical and horizontal lines using a 30 weight variegated thread and it turned out wonderfully.

Now to get started with the applique. These mini templates from Sew Easy come in 4 different shapes – diamond, triangle, pentagon and hexagon. If you remember on Monday I said I was going to use each template to fill in the blocks and border with different designs and color.

These templates can also be used for piecing miniature quilts as well as for English paper piecing. Each shape has 8 different sizes with the seam allowance added and marking holes for sewing. I’m afraid that I’m not into miniature quilts and so I decided that these templates will be perfect for applique.

Diamond

I’ll start with adding the diamonds to the borders. I’ll need the same fabrics that I used for the sashing and some fusible web such as HeatnBond.

The smallest template is the one I’m using since the border isn’t that wide. I’ll need to cut a strip of fabric and add some fusible to the back of each piece.

I then cut the fabric with the fusible to 1½″ so that the template can be placed on the strip and used for cutting the shapes. The first shape will require a cut on both sides and then just one after that to make the rest of the diamonds. Either a 28mm or 45mm rotary cutter will work with these templates.

The diamonds look great on the border.

The rest of the templates are cut the same way as the diamond from strips of fabric.

Hexagon

Originally I was going to make a snowman with the pentagon and ended up making snowflakes with the hexagon.

I used the smallest template for the smaller snowflake and I cut off the seam allowance to make a ¾″ hexagon which is the finished size of the smallest template if you were to sew them together.

Triangle

The triangle shape is perfect for a tree. I found that as the templates I used increased in size they tended to slip on the fabric and my thumb wasn’t enough to hold them in place. So I added a ruler/template grip which is just a little round disk that sticks to the back of the template. It can be removed and repositioned quite easily if need be. This little grip worked like a charm and made cutting much easier.

A stylized tree from triangles.

Pentagon

I used two of the pentagon templates to make the wreath. I like the shape of it.

With all the pieces cut I can now fuse them to the background. Notice I ended up taking the center hexagon out to make an open holed snowflake.

I had to pin each shape in place so that it wouldn’t move or shift when I fused it. For this I used glass headed pins so that they wouldn’t melt under the hot iron.

The mini templates create perfect shapes for applique on my charming Christmas runner and they’re all ready to be stitched and embellished tomorrow.