A Tardy Tutorial

Better late than never is not our normal life mantra, but sometimes that's just the way life is—especially when it comes to blog posts! Thankfully, there are no blog police out there and we can just roll with what the week brings and deliver a blog post a day (or two) later than we normally do.

We are working feverishly on quite a few projects for next year and as we do, we try to be diligent about taking pictures for our handouts. When we teach a class, we feel it is important to give our students all the information they might need to finish the project once they leave the class, thus all the pictures need to be taken for our handouts. This tutorial shows how I (Kara) have made the split leaves for one of our class projects. 

Split Leaf Tutorial

For this method I used a full leaf template, the convex side of a half leaf template and two different green fabrics. 

Step 1

Place the convex side of your leaf template on your first fabric.

Step 2

Trace the center vein line starting at the top making sure to trace the top and bottom curve of the leaf to help your placement later.

Step 3

Finger press along drawn line.

Step 4

Place on second green and pin.

Step 5

Appliqué the turned-under line between top and bottom marks. Turn over and trim the excess second fabric to 1/8 of an inch.

Step 6

Center full leaf template over appliquéd seam line and trace around with a marking pencil of your choice. I use a white uniball Signo rollerball pen which you can find HERE.

It helps if your leaf template has a drawn
center vein line, but I just eyeballed this leaf.

Drawn leaf

Step 7

Trim leaf leaving a generous 1/8".

Back side of leaf

Step 8

Place on background and pin or baste in place.

Step 9

Needle turn edges under!

There are a lot of ways to do split leaves for appliqué, but this method has worked well for me. As with many components of appliqué, it's always good to try multiple methods and find the one that works best for you. Hopefully, you will give this split leaf method a try.

In the not too distant future, we will be able to share the projects that we are working on in full. It's keeping us pretty busy, and Teri is also getting ready for an exciting, cross-country road trip. You can bet that her travels will include some fun quilty stops! 

Thanks for bearing with our tardiness in posting!