Create Perfect Appliqué Circles with Ease

Appliqué circles (and other rounded/curved shapes) can be easy to make when you use Sarah Fielke’s fantastic quilting tips. In this free lesson, she guides you through the fast and easy process of making absolutely perfect appliqué circles and ovals. Check it out, and then sign up for her amazing new quilting class, Big Techniques from Small Scraps!

I’m Sarah Fielke, online instructor for Bluprint.com. I’m going to show you a quick tip for making perfect appliqué circles with no fuss, really really quickly.

You’re going to need a piece of foil, just regular foil from your kitchen; a piece of cardboard, just an old cereal packet or something that’s cut to the shape and size of the circle you want; and you need something to trace around the circle with. So you can use white marking pen, a 2B pencil, or just anything that won’t show through.

I’m going to trace around the outside of the circle, all the way around, and then cut it out using a scant quarter-inch seam allowance, which I’ve already prepared. Once you have your circle cut out, you’re going to put the shiny side of the foil face-down, put the fabric on the top face-down, and then put the cardboard on to the fabric and line it up with the circle that you drew. Put your fingers in the middle, and you’re just going to pull the foil up around the circle, nice and tightly. Then turn it over to the front, and run your finger around to make sure you don’t have any little creases or points (because those creases or points will be there after you ironed it, if you don’t spread them out).

Once you have your circle nice and smooth, you put the crumpled side face-down on to the ironing board, and give it a nice long press with the iron. Once you ‘re happy that that’s nice and hot, give it a minute to cool down so you don’t burn your fingers. And then you can open up your little package from the back and pull out the cardboard. And now you have a circle that has a beautiful crease on it, that’s all ready for you to turn under an appliqué with hardly any fuss at all.

This will work for circles and ovals, for any smooth, round shape. It will save you lots of time.

I’m Sarah Fielke, instructor for Bluprint.com. For more great tips like this, you can check out my class, Big Techniques from Small Scraps, at Bluprint.com!

Then be sure to tune in tomorrow to learn how to make bias tape with Sarah, right here on the Bluprint blog.