thepolyparrot

Hi there and welcome from Texas! Yes, Tartan and Thimblebug got you covered.

I don't think any of the applique patterns I've ever used had seam allowances included - you have to add them in the cutting. I usually add 1/8" - 1/4" all around for starch-prepared pieces, depending on the size of the piece and complexity of the design. Simple circles, for instance - 1/8" is fine.

For needleturn, I pretty much use 1/4" and trim as necessary for points.

Lots of more experienced applique-ers here, so don't hesitate to ask questions when you want to - or show off your work with pictures! We love pictures!

cbraces

Thanks everyone for your help. I think I'm getting the hang of it. Haven't ironed it on yet.

Suz

Note also that your appliqué pieces are lettered A B C D. This is also the order which you appliqué each piece to your background. This is also true if your pieces are numbered.

You need to add seams only you are doing needleturn appliqué. If you are fusing or doing the buttonhole stitch round each piece, no added seam allowance is required.

Hope this helps.

thimblebug6000

Aw, she's so cute! Great job!

thepolyparrot

Completely cute!

ZooAnimals

Hi cbraces..Its a tough learning curve,I started applique with a pattern way above my skill level but I got through it after a lot of mistakes ..What I use now with multiable different colors is software Sewwhat it allows me to see, what the piece's that the pattern is going to sew, where the next piece has to go, different color cotton on where you have to glue and cut around, and gives you the ability to jump ahead to see what's happening with the pattern..this is my experience with applique

Lalla

This seems to me to be exactly why this forum is so valuable - instructions almost always leave out some vital piece of information! Years and years ago I wrote an embroidery book (hand embroidery - eek!) and in the introduction I said that instructions were exactly like British road signs (I’m originally from the UK), they tell you exactly where to go, then you get to a roundabout and they tell you exactly where to go then, two or three roundabouts later, the directions just stop. So you have no idea what to do next. If you struggle on and hope for the best then the next roundabout or turning will again tell you what to do, but there always seems to be a gap somewhere where you are left in the lurch. It’s assumed (usually wrongly, or at very least optimistically) by the instructor/roadsign designer that you somehow know or can intuit these bits and still find your way. I’m talking pre-GPS here, obviously! But the Quilting Board forum seems to me to provide the GPS we all need sometimes to make head or tail of opaque instructions! It’s a brilliant resource and the contributors to it so incredibly helpful.

ZooAnimals

Hi Lalla Hope you are safe? Your description of the instruction road map is correct..I followed the instructions on my first applique (far too complicated for the my first applique with 8 overlaps ) and was lead down the garden path into the sea !!!..took a couple of huge mistakes to find out was really going on..The applique instructions were well-meaning,a couple of pages but were an afterthought should have A.B.C.D.E.F ect; but were all over the place, just bad sentence coordination ....I use software to get me through complex layer applications now......Zoo

Lalla

Yes, landing in the sea seems to happen all the time! I think instruction writers often forget to put themselves in the shoes of those who don’t know something; it’s hard when you DO know something to remember what it was like before you learnt it, and easy to make assumptions about the expertise of your reader/student. I taught myself as I went along when I was doing the embroidery book, so I didn’t know any more as I was working things out than any subsequent reader of my instructions on HOW I worked it out. Which is actually quite a good way of doing things because the empathy is there - the frustration, the bafflement, the eventual success, the whole learning curve. And if it’s stuff your reader does already known fine, they can just skip to the next bit. It’s the leaving out of things that makes for poor instruction, that and, as you say, poor ‘sentence co-ordination’ and organisational skills. Which makes one value a good instructor all the more, and strive to be one oneself if ever one is doing the instructing. And thank you, yes, I’m safe and hope you, and everyone else out there, is too. Such times we are living through. I do strongly feel, though, that us ‘makers’ are the lucky ones, in so many situations. We always have something to turn to that is more or less a therapy in times of stress, something we can always do for ourselves, something creative when we need to be creative, or just plain repetitively soothing when repetition is all we are in the mood for. Sorry side-tracking, everyone, but maybe here’s as good a place as any to wax philosophical about the joys of our shared endeavour.

Rebaquilts

Super cute pattern! Beautiful color choices! Welcome to the board from the Sunset Coast of Michigan, virtual hugs!