Blog About Sewing, Quilting and DIY Projects

Crayon Applique? It's Tool and Technique Tuesday!

2/2/2016

It's the month of LOVE so of course I'm thinking Valentines Day Projects. This one I am calling Crayon Applique! For real!

I love doing seasonal projects and I attended a mini workshop at my Elmira Needle Sisters Group last week and one of our members demo'd how to use crayons on fabric. I had done this years ago as a demo and it was a pleasant reminder of a very nice technique, so I thought I would share it with my followers.

1) The first thing you do is find a black line image you like, colouring books an the internet are great resources for this. Raid your grandchildren's colouring books ha, ha (I'm sure they would be happy to share). Or buy one of those new therapeutic adult colouring books.

My image is below:

Feel free to share!

2) IronFreezer paper wax side down on the wrong side of the fabric as it helps to keep your fabric firm as you colour.

3) Once your fabric has cooled, with a Frixion pen (this pen disappears with heat and is wonderful for quilting/sewing projects), trace the image onto light coloured fabric, you can use a light box if you wish. I traced only the areas that were going to receive the crayon first.

4) Colour in your letters/images with Prang Crayons (Prang are recommended as their pigment is excellent and works well with fabric). I used them at the demo last week and then ordered them and used them on this project and they are wonderful. The colour intensity is great and the fabric still feels soft after you colour with them. You can also use crayola, but do not use any other brands as the pigment may not be permanent. See below they are only $2.59 Cdn for a box of 24!

5) Turn your iron on cotton setting and turn image crayon side down onto 2-3 layers of paper towel (this will protect your ironing board and iron and absorb the wax). Press for about 20 seconds all over the crayoned area. The excess wax will melt into the paper towel and the heat will seal the pigment into your fabric.

6) You may also wish to stabilize your fabric at this point prior to tracing any more items. I stabilized my image and satin stitched around my letters and free motion stitched my branches and birdies

7) Make into a pillow, stretch over a canvas, make a wall hanging, quilt as desired, add buttons or embellish, it's ready for gift giving ( would be a cute shower gift too!)