In the book Applique Mastery by Philippa Naylor, you're given a a template of one quarter of the quilt and it is very, very large but thankfully, the author had the foresight to include the patterns on the back pages of the book. I was able to lay the book on my copy machine and scan the pages into either a .PDF or .JPEG files. The Silhouette software only takes .jpegs.
I want a lot, if not all, of the applique pieces in this quilt to have folded edges as opposed to raw edge. So that means I need to cut designs out of fusible interfacing and fabric but I need the fabric to be slightly bigger. The idea is to iron the interfacing onto the fabric and have enough fabric around the interfacing to pull over the edges making the edge look nice an neat. If you want raw edge applique pieces, it means that you can see where the fabric has been cut and the edge may fray. You would iron the interfacing onto the wrong side of the fabric first, then cut your piece out in the exact size you need it.
(I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about the Silhouette software and how to use it. I will say that it is fairly easy to use and if you want to make a lot of cut outs (paper, vinyl or fabric), that the Cameo Silhouette is awesome and totally worth the price. Besides, a lot of quilt kits are now available with the option of buying pre-cut shapes (raw edge) but believe me you're going to pay for those shapes so you might as well invest in something like the Cameo and be able to use it for any future project you may have.)
Okay back to my testing...
I tested a Pellon non-woven, fusible, interfacing and Pellon fusible, Heavy Wonder Under (HWU). It's the interfacing I had in my craft room. I pulled up a design in Silhouette, cut a 12x12" piece of fusible, lightly pressed it to the sticky mat and did several test cuts on each fusible. The heavy WU worked the best but the other was fine too although some of the glue web stuck to the mat but it came off easily. The glue web of the HWU did not. Guess I better make sure I put the glue side up.
Next, I took a scrap piece of fabric and pressed it to the mat and did a test. It failed horribly. The fabric slid around on the mat and needless to say it didn't get cut. I ironed the fabric to some freezer paper and it cut it out beautifully. It didn't cut all the way through to the freezer paper but the fabric was cut just fine.
So I need to buy a lot of heavy WU and more freezer paper and then I can get cutting. Just to mention, my test design was a circle (approx. 1.5") and I covered 2 - 12x12" mats of circles and I got roughly 30 circles of interfacing and 25 fabric circles in about 2 minutes or less of cut time.
I want a lot, if not all, of the applique pieces in this quilt to have folded edges as opposed to raw edge. So that means I need to cut designs out of fusible interfacing and fabric but I need the fabric to be slightly bigger. The idea is to iron the interfacing onto the fabric and have enough fabric around the interfacing to pull over the edges making the edge look nice an neat. If you want raw edge applique pieces, it means that you can see where the fabric has been cut and the edge may fray. You would iron the interfacing onto the wrong side of the fabric first, then cut your piece out in the exact size you need it.
(I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about the Silhouette software and how to use it. I will say that it is fairly easy to use and if you want to make a lot of cut outs (paper, vinyl or fabric), that the Cameo Silhouette is awesome and totally worth the price. Besides, a lot of quilt kits are now available with the option of buying pre-cut shapes (raw edge) but believe me you're going to pay for those shapes so you might as well invest in something like the Cameo and be able to use it for any future project you may have.)
I tested a Pellon non-woven, fusible, interfacing and Pellon fusible, Heavy Wonder Under (HWU). It's the interfacing I had in my craft room. I pulled up a design in Silhouette, cut a 12x12" piece of fusible, lightly pressed it to the sticky mat and did several test cuts on each fusible. The heavy WU worked the best but the other was fine too although some of the glue web stuck to the mat but it came off easily. The glue web of the HWU did not. Guess I better make sure I put the glue side up.
Next, I took a scrap piece of fabric and pressed it to the mat and did a test. It failed horribly. The fabric slid around on the mat and needless to say it didn't get cut. I ironed the fabric to some freezer paper and it cut it out beautifully. It didn't cut all the way through to the freezer paper but the fabric was cut just fine.
So I need to buy a lot of heavy WU and more freezer paper and then I can get cutting. Just to mention, my test design was a circle (approx. 1.5") and I covered 2 - 12x12" mats of circles and I got roughly 30 circles of interfacing and 25 fabric circles in about 2 minutes or less of cut time.
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