Tutorial- reverse applique ampersand

Reverse applique is a technique I found a while back on the design sponge blog. It is very effective and looks much harder than it is!

I had great fun messing about and eventually created a simple ampersand motif. Here's how..

Materials: 

Two pieces of fabric, one plain, one patterned. Both roughly A4 sized. 

Sewing machine

Sharp scissors 

1. Grab your two pieces of fabric and decide which will be the background and which the ampersand. I used the spotty fabric for the background. 

2. Print out your ampersand shape and trace it onto the background fabric. (In my case the spotty fabric). To trace simply tape the paper to a window and place the fabric over it. The light makes it easy to draw the design onto the material. I used a white pen so that it showed up on the dark material.

3. Pin your fabric together with the background material on top. In my case the white is under the spotty. Use lots of pins to be sure that your fabric won't move. 

4. Set up a contrasting thread (I used white) and sew around the ampersand shape. The two pieces of material will now be joined together. 

5. (This is the fun part!) Using your sharp scissors, carefully cut away the TOP layer of the fabric inside the sewn lines. This will leave the coloured fabric underneath exposed. Make sure you don't cut too close to the sewed lines.

6. There are many things you can do with your ampersand now. You could pin it right sides together with another piece of fabric and sew it into a place mat or do what I did, and zig-zag the edges to stop it fraying and then pop it into a frame. 

Cute, simple artwork! Have fun!