When you upcycle fabric, you're bound to end up with some that feels too plain, that you're not super excited to work with. I'm always a little envious of the craft stores full of cute and colorful quilting fabric, but we can make our own cute fabric without buying anything extra and you get to raid your scrap pile!
What you need:
Your plain fabric (preferably pre cut for a project)
Scrap fabrics
Pencil/pen
Paper or cardboard for making templates
Sewing machine supplies, embroidery supplies, or hand sewing supplies
I'll be showing you how to add more interest to your fabric for a doll dress, but you can apply this to absolutely anything, even finished garments or bags! I've already precut my pattern out of my plain fabric, this will help me avoid adding decorations to fabric that I won't use.
Raid your fabric scraps and find some fun fabrics that coordinate or spice up your plain fabric. Make sure to iron the fabric at some point, I waited until after I cut my appliques out but if your fabric is really wrinkled you should do it first!
The size and shape of your scraps might limit the shapes and sizes of your appliques. I originally thought I would be making a bunch of hearts from this floral fabric, but I only had enough for 1 and decided to make dots from the smaller strips.
I free hand drew a heart on the back of the fabric, folding it in half before cutting out to make sure it was symmetrical.
To get a perfect circle template, I traced a few bottle caps on to a cereal box, and traced the circles on the back of my fabric before cutting out. I like to make cardboard templates as I can't always get a perfect trace when I'm using a lid directly on the fabric.
If you have really interesting fabric, you could cut it out in specific shapes following the print. For example, you could cut out a whole flower, cartoon character, or any other shape on your fabric!
Once you have your appliques, start laying them on your fabric to determine a layout. You can make them totally random, mix and match patterns, overlap them, or have them perfectly spaced out- there's really no rules here! I decided to raid my trim stash too, so I'm also stitching down vintage Ric rack and crocheted lace trim from a baby blanket.
Pin your appliques where you want them. If you're sewing by machine, sew a zigzag stitch over the edge of your applique. Be sure to go slow and have your zig zag aligned so that it starts sewing on your patch and then the zigzag just barely goes over the edge to secure the raw edges of the fabric. This is what protects the fabric from fraying!
You will have something that looks like this!
If you'd prefer an embroidered edge, you can put your fabric in an embroider hoop and sew over the applique edge with a blanket stitch like I did for my scrappy gift tags. You could also sew an invisible ladder stitch by slightly folding under the edge of your applique and sewing in between your applique and main fabric.
Now go tackle all that uninspiring fabric with your fabric scraps!
If you try this project, I'd love to see! Tag @Sunny_Salvage on Instagram or Facebook and follow me on Pinterest for more upcycling ideas!
Happy upcycling!
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