Wool fabric is great for appliqué projects. There is little fraying. It is great for beginners. Hand-dyed felted wool can be purchased in many colors and textures. It’s also easy to felt wool on your own. My wool stash has grown over the last few years to include already felted hand-dyed wool fat eights (12″x17″) and charm squares (5″x5″). I also have wool apparel yardage purchased from an estate sale that I felted myself.
Felting wool is not an exact science, and the topic deserves a blog post of its own. You can search the internet and find lots of how-to’s. Basically, you take 100% wool yardage, or thrift store finds such as skirts or slacks, and use your home washer and dryer. Remove any seams. Wash a full load in hot water, using regular laundry soap. Be sure to have a full load, perhaps adding towels or jeans, so the wool gets heavy agitation. Then dry in a hot dryer, removing when mostly dry to avoid wrinkles. The weave in your wool fabric will get nice and tight – felted!
I found this sweet little wool appliqué pattern called “Holiday Skate” from Buttermilk Basin, at one of my favorite wool shops, Plaid Sheep. This blog post is not so much about making this cute pattern, but instead, giving you some of the basics of wool appliqué so you can make this pattern, or another one of your choosing.
The first step for me is going thru my wool scraps, and pulling together colors I think will work. As you can see I save bits and pieces from previous projects. For the background and the ice skate, I used wool yardage (purchased at an estate sale) that I felted myself. I also used wool from my charm squares and scraps.
Next I take my pattern, and using a lightbox and a piece of Pellon 805 Wonder Under, I trace all the individual shapes with a pencil. Note the pattern I am using has already reversed the image; if not, I would need to do that on my own. Place the Wonder Under rough side down on the lightbox, and trace on the paper side. Be sure to trace a little extra where the shape will be slightly “under” another shape. Cut out all the shapes, leaving about 1/4″ around each shape. I number and/or letter each piece, both on the pattern and on my drawn shapes. Regarding lightboxes, you can spend a LOT of money on one. Mine came from eBay, not fancy, no measurement marks, and cost about $50. You can also hold your pattern up to the window!
Take the cut out shapes and place them rough side down on the back of your fabric. Following the directions on the Wonder Under, fuse them to the fabric (about 5-8 seconds using a hot, dry iron). Next step is to use small sharp scissors to cut the fabric shapes on the traced lines.
All the shapes need to be fused to the different colors of wool, and then cut on the traced lines.
I also need to prepare my background fabric. After cutting my black wool to size, for this pattern, 12″x12″, I cut a same sized piece of Pellon SF101 Shape-Flex. This is fused to the back of the background fabric to give it more stability once I start embroidering.
I am ready to begin layering and building my appliqué pieces! I have found that taking a seam ripper, and gently cutting a slit in the paper backing of the Wonder Under is the easiest way to remove the paper.
Take note of which shapes are slightly under other shapes. Begin removing the paper from these shapes first, placing them on the background fabric. Layer the other shapes on top. This is where numbering and/or lettering the pattern pieces, both on the pattern and on the cut shapes, really helps.
Following the Wonder-Under directions, fuse the layered shapes to the background fabric. I use a damp pressing cloth, with my iron on the wool setting.
Now we are ready for the fun part – adding embroidery stitches and other embellishments! Hand embroidery is an art; it can take a lifetime to learn all the stitches! But with a few simple basic ones, you can complete a wool appliqué project. I have found this Embroidery Pocket Guide to be very helpful, and easy to follow.
For wool applique, I really like Valdani Perle Cotton threads, especially the variegated ones. I have collected a few, but as you can see, there are so many colors to chose from! I also have some DMC No 8 solids that I am anxious to try. I used a DMC size 24 Chenille needle for this project, with my Valdani Perle Cotton threads.
I used very basic embroidery stitches for this project – blanket stitch, stem stitch, and a straight stitch. And then added a couple pretty buttons for embellishments.
After finishing the hand appliqué on the the 12″x12″ black wool, I machine appliquéd the black wool to a slightly larger piece of winter-white wool, matching the skate. My plan was to make this a wall hanging, but it might become a pillow. This small project was practice. Now on to my next wool project which is a 15″x50″ wool bed runner!
As you can tell from my closeup pictures, I am still very much a beginner at hand embroidery. But I am okay with that! I’ll get better with practice. I think the end result is BEAUTIFUL!
Your project is beautiful! Now I want to get out my wool kit I bought on the Paducah trip. 😁
Thanks Jennifer! Get going on that wool kit!
Fun inspiration! We have a hand sewing sit & chat scheduled for the end of the month. My quilting buddies will gather without packing every tool or lugging machines, making yo-yos, finishing binding, or sewing wool appliqué! My sister brought me a wool appliqué kit from a recent trip. Now I know where to begin!
This post is golden!
I am truly a Jack (Jane) of all things sewing & quilting. So many fun things to try!
& Master of none!
Very nice pics and information
I haven’t tried wool applique but it looks like fun. Would you like to do a demo at the getaway.I would really like to try this.. thank you.
Patsy
It is fun Patsy. Yes, I could do a small demo. Would love to!