It’s lots of fun to use cuddly soft fleece for your applique – and it’s easy!
But you can’t use fusible adhesive for it. The heat needed to melt the adhesive will also melt your fleece. Not good!
The solution is glue stick!
You’ve seen me use glue stick before to hold pieces in place on fleece while you stitch them down, like adding felt details to a softie face.
But you can also use glue stick to hold the fleece itself in place on a quilt block!
You can use any glue stick made specifically for fabric. It’ll hold really well (and make things kind of stiff) but it washes out easily so your finished quilt is cuddly and soft.
That means you do need to stitch the edges down permanently!
If you look at that blue bird up there you can see I used a fairly wide and open zigzag stitch around the edges. That’s one option.
Another option is just to use a simple straight stitch, like I do around all my other applique pieces. You can see that option on the snowy ground in this Shiny Happy Houses quilt block.
I loaded up large images for both of these – so you can click on them to see them closer. The zigzag stitching leaves a slightly crisper edge, where the straight stitch is a softer, fluffier edge. If you decide to applique with fleece, just choose the edge treatment that works best for your project!
Both of my examples are using cuddle fleece, but this method also works well for polar fleece. Just make sure to get the no-pill kind!
I’d love to see some fluffy, fleecy cats and dogs!
Here are links to all the posts about choosing fabric.
- How to Choose Fabric for a Quilt
- Using Fabric Print Wisely
- Applique with Prints – Tips for Color Choices
- Why Spoonflower Fabric
- How to Fill-a-Yard on Spoonflower
And here are links to posts about using specialty fabrics.
- Working with Flannel
- How to Applique with Shiny Fabric
- How to Applique with Satin
- How to Applique with Fleece
- How to Applique with Faux Fur
- How to Applique onto Faux Fur
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Happy stitching!
Love this. Thank your for all the wonderful information. Do you have information on how to use the cuddle fleece that you use on the back as the binding? Do you do this. Thank you again.
I don’t use cuddle fleece for my binding. I’ve seen it done – so it’s possible – but the examples I saw were kind of stiff because of the thickness of the fabric. I use a regular cotton binding and apply it just like any other quilt and it works great.
I have a baby quilt pattern that calls for wool felt in the appliques. Thinking of using fleece instead (doggy ears, etc.). My concern is that wool felt is not easily washable and this is a baby quilt that will get dirty. Is there a similar worry with fleece? Many thanks for your tutorials. I’ve made a few baby quilts in my day and am excited to have the time now to do this more often!
Fleece should work great and be much easier to wash. Just be sure to get the “no-pill” fleece. It costs a extra $1-2, but it’s totally worth it.
I was hoping this was going to tell me how to applique using fusible fleece interfacing. Maybe you could add a little more info, please.
Can I use fleece in a appliqué on a t-shirt?
Yes!
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I want to attach a label to my quilt. Is this the same procedure to use when placing it on the cuddle fleece?
I usually attach my labels after the quilt is finished, and I don’t like my stitching to show through to the front, so I generally sew on my labels by hand using ladder stitch. You’ll find some more info in this post. https://www.shinyhappyworld.com/2018/04/add-a-label-to-your-quilt.html
We used to have two mango trees in our yard only to find them disappearing when ripe. The thief was an opossum so my husband bought one of those Have-a-Heart traps the critter was caught but not harmed.
Let me tell you they have very sharp teeth and claws and when caged, they are very angry. Must be extremely careful yourself!!! So, a blanket was chosen to cover the cage and husband would take the “prisoner” to a woods nearby and let it loose back into the wild. All’s well. However, the was done multiple times all was well each time. Thank goodness.