Fussy Cut Fabrics with Die Line Embroidery Templates

Up until recently, I used to print out my templates so I could fussy cut my fabrics. For those of you who don’t know about fussy cutting your fabric, this is a process where you pre-cut your fabrics to the correct shape and size before using it in your embroidery. The pros to this is that there is minimal fabric wastage. The downside is that it does take a bit of time. Fussy cutting fabric is especially useful for when doing applique designs and patchwork.

The new technique of machine embroidery applique is fun and easy. This particular type of applique has no raw edges and no satin or heavy embroidery stitches to hold the applique fabric in place. Instead a V-stitch is used and it is basically almost invisible.

I have always loved applique, but the one thing that puts me off, is the satin stitch edging that is mostly used. Not only does satin stitch edging take a fair amount of time to stitch out on your embroidery machine, but it also uses a lot of thread. Also, satin stitch edgings can make the applique design hard and unbendable.  I tried different stitch types and got some great results. I liked the feather stitch as it gives the applique a more country look. The only downside is that if your fabric has a loose weave, you might get a stray thread or two.

This new applique technique is based on the paper piecing technique, but modified for machine embroidery. It is something I will definitely be doing a lot of. I got to stitch out an entire table runner on a Saturday afternoon. How great isn’t that! Twenty four hoopings later and I still had time to make supper and have a bit of “me time”.

So getting back to preparing your fabric or more importantly fussy cut. Now, I know most of us print out our templates onto paper and then use the paper templates to cut out our fabric. There are always things that can go wrong with printing out templates. Namely, they don’t print out to the correct size or the pieces don’t fit on one sheet and have to be printed over two or more sheets, which then need to be joined or (this usually happens to me) the printer runs out of ink.

Recently this is what happened to me. My printer ran out of ink. I just couldn’t wait to start on my table runner. So, I opted to rather make my template into an embroidery design. This was just perfect! I created an embroidery design for a template and called it a die line file template.

I stitched the design / template onto cut away stabilizer and then cut it out. The best part was that it stitched to the correct size for my design.  I didn’t have to join pages like one has to sometimes do with paper templates and importantly, because the template was made from cut away stabilizer, I could use it over and over to cut out my fabric without having to worry about it tearing.

However, for those of you who still prefer paper templates, you can still print your templates from the die line embroidery file.  To do this, just open the die line embroidery file in your embroidery software and print it. Be sure though, to print it at 100% or without scaling, otherwise your template might not come out the correct size.

So next time when you start a new embroidery project, you might just find die line embroidery files for the templates. Stitching out your templates is an easy and “no fuss” way to making your templates for fussy cutting.