Tuesday Tip-Day: Change of (Fabric) Plans

Confession time.  How long does it take for you to pick your fabrics when stitching?  Does a fabric pop into your mind as soon as you look at the design?  Or do you put two, three, or ten fabric swatches on top of a blank item to try to help you decide which one to use?  I typically fall somewhere in the middle of those extremes but have been on either end at some point too!

Do any of you get through a design and then realize you should have used another fabric?  I have had those problems too...but I have also been able to fix that issue mid way through a design!  Want to know the trick? 

At All Things Applique, I typically create the designs so all of the placement and tackdown stitches are at the beginning of the design and all of the satin and detail stitching follows at the end of the design.  This can't be done all of the time, but I prefer to get all of my trimming done at the beginning and then let the time consuming satin stitches run at the end while I prep my next project.  When all of my tackdown and trimming steps are complete, I usually hold up my hooped item and take a good look to make sure I like what I see.  In the picture below, I thought the fabric on the left for the crown was too busy.  When I put my fabrics together ahead of time, I thought the stripes would look great against the orange pumpkin, but once the small crown piece was tacked down I knew it didn't look how I pictured.  Sigh.  Instead of starting over, I simply went back one thread color on my machine and tacked a new piece of crown fabric on top of the old crown fabric! 

Here is the finished Princess Pumpkin with our Pirate Pumpkin...

Aren't they a cute pair?

A few extra tips:

• make sure that the new fabric is dark enough to cover the first fabric.  If not, try putting a solid piece of fabric in between the old fabric and new fabric
• make sure the first fabric is trimmed a close as possible before tacking down the second fabric
• in the example above, if you want to change any "bottom" fabrics (such as the pumpkin), you will also need to re-tack the top fabric. 
• I would only recommend doing this once.  The more fabric layers you add, the tougher it will be for the satin stitches to cover all of the edges. 

Hope this Tuesday Tip helps you work through any fabric change of plans with ease!