Broiderie Perse Tutorial For Crazy Quilting Part 2

This is Part 2 of the tutorial for Broiderie Perse Applique on Crazy Quilting.  You can find Part 1 of the Broiderie Perse tutorial here.

Once you have your applique ironed onto your crazy quilt block, you're going to want to add some decorative stitches.

Traditionally, the Blanket Stitch is used to hold fabric appliques in place.  Personally, that's fine for shapes, but for Broiderie Perse, I don't care for the way it looks.

There's no right or wrong way so I opted for the chain stitch:

Start by stitching around the outside of the fabric applique.  I used 1 strand of Kreinik #4 Braid in gold but you can use whatever thread you like.  Keep your chain stitches small and try to pierce the edge of your fabric applique to hold the edges in place.

Once you're applique is "outlined", you can stop stitching if you want to.  But who wants to stop stitching!  I continued to outline the petals on my flowers using the chain stitch.

 I also added some straight stitches to the centers of the flowers.

Again, if you want to stop stitching here, you can.  If you want to keep going, you'll need 3 shades of thread that match the coloring in your applique.  I choose 3 shades of rose in DMC Rayon Floss.  I'm not sure they make that thread any more.  I think they make a satin floss which is similar but I have a ton of their Rayon so I used 2 strands of it.  Again, you can use embroidery floss.  I recommend 2 or 3 strands, depending on how much you want your stitches to pop.

Start with the darkest shade first which should be closest to the center of your flowers.  Now much of this will depend on the print that you used.  Begin by making straight stitches out from the center of the flower following the shading on your fabric print:

You probably won't need to use a lot of the darkest color.  Move on to your medium shade following the colors in your applique and making long straight stitches.

And finally, as you can see in the above photo, the lightest shade of your thread color.

If you have leaves in your applique, do those too!  The more stitching, the prettier your applique becomes.  But you don't want to cover all the fabric.  You do want to leave some unstitched areas to show through.

I added a few gold beads to the flower centers.

And this is the block:

This is really a piece of cake.  It's nothing more than a chain stitch and long straight stitches.  Keep in mind, the rayon floss that I used is very shiny!  You can use whatever thread you like.  Even simple cotton embroidery floss will give a painted look to your flowers.

Click on the photos to see them up close.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions.  The link to my email address is in the sidebar near the top of my blog.

I hope that you will try this technique.  If you do, please send photos to me and I will include them in the Autumn issue of Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine!