Crafty Cut Applique

Applique embroidery uses fabric to fill parts of a design. One style of applique is called "crafty cut," and that has raw fabric edges. It brings a crafty look and layers of texture to your projects.

Project Needs & Notes

- Fabric like felt or denim
- Decorative scissors or pinking shears
- Medium-weight (2.5 ounce) cutaway stabilizer
- Temporary spray adhesive (like Gunold KK100)

For this tutorial, I used the Cozy Country Crafty Cut Butterfly (Applique) design. Find even more crafty cut applique designs in the Crafty Cut Applique category here.

This project was featured in the following:
12 Top-Trending Embroidery Styles Lookbook

All applique designs from Embroidery Library come with a dieline file.

Download the applique design and unzip it. Extract the files, and look for the file marked with the letters "DL." That is the dieline.

Dielines are used to cut applique fabric to the right shape and size

Dielines are embroidery designs. Open the dieline with embroidery software, and print it.

If you do not have embroidery software, Wilcom's TrueSizer is a free program that can print templates.

Place the dieline printout onto the fabric, and cut out the shape.

Felt is used in this example. If you wish, you can use a decorative scissors or pinking shears to give the felt a textured edge.

Remove the paper from the felt.

A template, or printout of the design, helps to plan where the design will be stitched on the linen napkin.

Mark the horizontal and vertical axis lines, as well as the center point.

Hoop the napkin with a piece of cutaway stabilizer. Line up the marks on the napkin with the marks on the hoop.

Load the full embroidery design (not the dieline) to the embroidery machine, and embroider the design.

The color change sheet shows the stitching order.

In this example, the butterfly's antennae stitch first, then it embroiders a dieline. That traces the shape for the applique piece.  

Spray the back of the applique piece with a small amount of temporary adhesive, then place it in the stitched dieline.

Continue embroidering the design. A tack down stitch binds the applique fabric to the linen napkin. For crafty cut applique designs, the tack down stitches are 1/4" in from the edge of the fabric, resulting in the textured, crafty cut look.

After embroidering, trim the cutaway stabilizer away from the back of the napkin. Leave about 1/2" around the design.

Crafty cut applique is a unique style that adds texture and dimension to your embroidery projects.

Achieve different looks on your projects by trimming the edges of crafty cut applique designs with various types of scissors or decorative shears.

Here, the colorful vegetable designs feature a clean edge, while the butterfly featured above has a crafty look achieved with pinking shears. You can also use fabric that frays to add a unique look to your projects.

Felt, used in the above example, doesn't fray. But denim does fray, as shown in this example. Use that denim fringe as a fun texture to incorporate into your projects!