EMBROIDERIES OF INDIA / APPLIQUE WORK / PROCESS -1

- There are two important steps in applique. The first includes the designing and transfer of the design to the fabric, the second is the applique itself. There are two approaches to designing for applique.

- The first approach is to work directly with materials, cutting shapes, arranging and rearranging the shapes, and stitching them to a background either by hand or machine without any planning.

- The second approach is to plan a design on paper, using cut paper, tracing shapes out of books, or drawing simple forms such as leaves, butterflies, fish, etc. The colour and texture of the material should be carefully chosen as they are a very important part of the design.

- The basic idea of applique seems easy cutting a shape out of one fabric and sewing that shape onto another fabric. However, it is actually a fair bit more complicated than that. There are a few things that you need to consider such as whether to hand sew or machine sew, what materials to use, how to stop the edges from fraying, etc.

- Applique is a simple and effective method of decorating fabric whether you are using hand appliqué or machine applique. Hand applique means you sew it yourself, so you have to know at least one type of stitch such as the slipstitch. Machine applique is of course done mostly on sewing machines. Applique doesn't just use fabric; it can also be used with other materials such as beads, sequins, etc. and is often combined with other types of needlework such as embroidery to create the desired effect.