Appliqué

I decided to explore different forms of appliqué in 2025. I'm taking an online course from Shannon Brinkley at her school, Art School for Makers, and she leads us through the completion of a mini-project for each technique covered.

So far, I've worked with raw-edge appliqué, traditional needle turn appliqué, machine appliqué with various stitches, bias tape ribbon appliqué, Hawaiian quilting-style appliqué (also known as snowflake appliqué), reverse appliqué, and even negative reverse appliqué (blog post with photos of these styles). I already practiced some forms of appliqué (I'm a big fan of raw-edge appliqué), but other forms were new to me (almost all machine techniques!).

Negative reverse appliqué was also a new discovery for me. You may have heard of Mola, but have you ever seen the garments made in the Ainu tradition of Japan? These are masterpieces, and you can see some examples online on the Japan Folks Craft Museum website. I haven't made my mini-project using this technique yet, but I should get to it soon!

« This adventure with various appliqué techniques reminds me why I love quilting and patchwork so much: these are arts and crafts that encourage a lot of freedom of expression and contain a lot of variety, both in terms of techniques and styles. »

To avoid falling into perfectionism (which can paralyze us), I approach each mini-project as a trial run and examine the areas where I encountered difficulties, but I don't correct them. I’m calling them mini-projects, but in reality, they're more often just samples. I keep them to have a physical reference of the technique in case I ever want to revisit it.

This adventure with various appliqué techniques reminds me why I love quilting and patchwork so much: these are arts and crafts that encourage a lot of freedom of expression and contain a lot of variety, both in terms of techniques and styles.

For example, right now, I'm not a huge fan of machine appliqué, but I can see its usefulness depending on the end use of the project, and it didn't hurt to try the technique. On the contrary, I was able to explore more decorative stitches on my sewing machine and I confirmed that I have a clear preference for doing hand appliqué.

I still have a lot of techniques left to try in Shannon Brinkley's course, so I feel like I can't put my sewing machine away just yet! In any case, I'll keep you updated on my future discoveries!