Messy Ribbon Reverse Appliqué

My baby wakes up at 5:30 every.single.morning.  Once in bed with us, he’ll fall back to sleep for about an hour and a half.  But I just lay there, a small fist in my face, a pajama’d foot in my ribs.  This morning it was worth it though, because while laying there I thought up a fun little some’n some’n to make for my house. 

Start with your supplies:

-Ribbons and ric rac –the more variety the better
-fusible interfacing
-a small, 12*12 or so, piece of fabric (I used cotton muslin, and needed two pieces because it’s so thin)
-another piece of scrap fabric, also 12*12
-buttons
-A picture of the desired shape you want

Trace the outline of your shape onto the interfacing.  You’ll use this as a guide when placing your ribbons.

Now start cutting and laying strips of ribbon and ricrac to fill the space of the shape, making sure to leave some overhang on all sides

CAREFULLY press the ribbon to the interfacing.  I tried using some tissue paper to protect my iron from the blank spaces where the interfacing was exposed.  Don’t.  Trust me.  Just don’t.  Just try to avoid those places instead.

The ribbon doesn’t have to be perfectly secured.  Just on there good enough so that you can….

Lay the interfacing right side up on the wrong side of your scrap fabric

Sew parallel diagonal lines across the ribbon, holding it in place.  You can kind of move the ribbon around to where you want it as you go.  It’s totally fine if it’s messy.  At least it is for me. 

Now take your other fabric and trace the shape onto the wrong side of it. 

Because I was doing a symmetrical shape, I then folded the fabric in half and cut out that way

  

Place the fabric on the ribbon mess with the ribbon showing through the cut out shape
Pin in place

Sew along the outside edge of the cut out.  I used a nice, thick stitch so that it would show. 

I just left the edges raw, because I thought some fraying would go well with the messy ribbons. 

Get your buttons and decide where you want them.  I used a sharp pencil to mark where the holes of the buttons were, so that I could match up where I wanted them when I sewed them in place.

Sew them on.  I used orange embroidery thread for contrast

Frame it.  Hang it.  Love it.

Then make one for Easter.
 

I didn’t put any buttons on this one.  I used this awesome fabric from some curtains in my old house.  And I felt it didn’t need buttons.
See:

 

I also want to try this as a monogram, for the no-holiday-pending season.

And seriously, how cute would this be on a little girl's shirt?!

Someone with a little girl go do it and show me, please.

Thanks.

You Told Me:
3/13/10 Natayla, “For a shirt you could not cut the fabric you wanted to have show there the shirt. Trace your design on the shirt, sew along the design then cut out to show the fabric or ribbon under.”



3/15/10 Julie, “You totally need one for every holiday, including holidays that people don't usually decorate for--how cool would one for President's Day be? Or Talk Like a Pirate Day? Or Pi Day? Or Pie Day?!?” (seriously rolling at these ideas!)

3/16/10 Jessie Momma, “I think this would be a really cute summer one with watermelon or a big sun.”

3/17/10 Anne, “what if I used strips from my fabric scrap bin??” (Do it! what a great idea for using your scraps! plus the fraying would totally look awesome)

3/17/10 Sorka, “If this is just intended for wall art.. then why not use Glad Press n Seal in lieu of interfacing? hmm.. I find it works very well when doing reverse applique. I can trace the image by sticking it on the paper, then peel it and pop it on my fabric and sew it and peel it off again! Magic!” (GENIUS! To avoid gumming up your needle maybe some baby powder?)