My Last Words on Fusible

I’m going to briefly show you how I fastened down my stems, and how I handle layered pieces, and then that’s all I have to say on the fusible method. I’m just not good at it, and I don’t enjoy it myself, so I don’t use it too often. But I wanted to include the information for those of you that want to try it or use it and have better luck than I do.

Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for fusing your stem pieces to your background fabric. After you do that step, you need to do something to the edges of the pieces so that they don’t come loose. Usually, this involves stitching around them in some fashion.

Usually, when I use the fusible method, it’s with pieces that I can do a hand blanket stitch around the edges of, and then I don’t mind. What I’m not so good at is fastening them down by machine. My machine does blanket stitch, but still and all, I’m the driver, and I’m not a good one!

But for purposes of this post, I sucked it up and did some of it. It’s not pretty, but it’s done.

On these particular pieces, I particularly don’t like how the stitching met in the middle, almost completely covering up the stem. But far be it from me to try to figure out how to change the size of the stitches!

You can also use a satin stitch, which makes a pretty edge on each piece as well. Maybe that’s what I should have done for mine. It might have looked better.

For the circles, using the fusible method, there is no special trick. Just do them like you do the other pieces and fasten down the edges.

For the layered flowers, however, you need to overlap the pieces. I showed you how to cut them leaving room for the overlap in an earlier tutorial, and now you’ll see how that comes in handy.

Lay down piece #9 in position . . .

Position piece #10 on top of it, overlapping the bottom edge of piece #9.

Then position piece #11 over those, again overlapping where you’ve left seam allowance.

This catches all the edges, and the only edges you’ll need to stitch down are the ones left exposed.

And that is all I have to say on that subject, since I’m really no expert at it. I hope what little I’ve explained has helped you in the event that’s the method you’ve chosen to use.

I’ll be back later with some more pictures of the needle-turn method as we finish up Block 1. Block 2 will be posted on February 1, so we need to get this first one done!