Ten Applique Techniques and More

©Kathy Goodwind2001

Definition: The word "Applique", in all the dictionary's and sewing books I researched, simply means applied. In the case of sewing it is defined as fabric shapes applied to a background of fabric. Most sewing books refer to applique in the context of either quilting or embellishments.

Quilts usually made with natural fibers and embellishments, include folk art and freeform appliques and are probably the most well known examples of applique. Poodle skirts made of felt, most likely come in second when one thinks of applique. Other applique forms include embroidered pieces where the decorative hand stitches that hold the fabric design to the background, become part of the design. Machine stitching natural fiber applique, requires a zig-zag stitch called a "satin" stitch. This close, wide zig zag is used to keep the natural and uncoated synthetic fibers from fraying. Satin stitch can also be incorporated as part of the design by using contrasting threads.

When I first entered Kitedom around 1976, many kites were still being made with natural fibers or uncoated fabrics. Satin stitch was very prevalent on the majority applique kites. Because the kites were made of natural fibers, the satin stitch not only secured the fabric to the kite, it also served to augment the design itself. One artist in particular, Lois Clark, always used, a simple Indian style fighter kite as her format and colored cotton as her medium. She embellished her wonderful flower and animal applique with a flawless satin stitch in a wide variety of colors . Long satin ribbon tails enhanced all her kites. Other artists used applique in a variety of ways that were highly sought after. Indeed these kites were auctioned off for very high prices at the AKA.

Many of these kites were featured in KITELINES magazine. This was my first encounter with appliqued kites and I fell in love with them. At the same time I discovered a new fabric that had incredible characteristics that no other natural fiber fabric had at the time. There was very little stretch and no fraying with coated nylon ripstop. Coated ripstop nylon or spinnaker cloth came in wonderful vibrant colors that could be applied to itself to create other colors and could be used to create countless designs.

Although nylon ripstop became my medium of choice to work with, I still had to envy the applique designs of Heloise Lochman of White Bird Kites. Her use of colored nylon taffeta for applique had a richness of color that the weave of ripstop could not match. Other applique artists such as David Ti of Sound wind Air Arts used oxford nylons to create fabulous flowing banners and windsocks. However, both nylon taffeta and oxford need to be heat sealed to eliminate the chance of fraying. This also limits the applique techniques that can be used. Heloise uses a forward technique of applique. Card-board, metal or lamenite patterns are made and laid onto the fabric, the design is then cut with a hot knife. David Ti uses a form of Seminole patchwork where stripes are cut in different widths and sewn together to create geometric patterns. Although David used to hot knife all the strips he now has a laser cutter that makes his job much easier.

Applique took on another dimension with the introduction of synthetic fibers into the sewing market. I remember finding unique forms of applique at street fairs where one local woman made nylon vests with local scenery sewn onto feather down vests. Teeny tiny pieces were hot cut and set into the fabric using a straight stitch rather than a satin stitch. These vests were made of ripstop nylon that was not coated, a difficult task at best. Her designs allowed for shading. Using different shades of colors made the designs of animals, mountains or flowers come alive and seem dimensional. She was my idol and inspiration. I only knew her by her first name Ruby. At one time I tried to call her and find out her technique, more specific the type of hot tool she was using. She was not too helpful and was more worried that I would try to take over her market. Not too much information there, nor much chance that I would take over her market. This woman was prolific! I tried to explain that I wanted to use this technique on kites. At that time it was an even bigger laugh then it is now. Needless to say, I was on my own.

Having been a scientific researcher in my former life. I searched until I found the tools I needed to create the pieces I had swirling around in my mind. I cannot say that there was a whole raft of books available on applique at the time either but several books got my mind working. I took my ideas from many different sources. I really was never interested in using Disney characters but I did look at the artwork as Inspiration. There are so many resources to choose from to find a design to transfer to a kite format. Greeting cards, stickers, stained glass pattern books, geometric designs, art books and comic books.

Inspiration can be the seed that brings forth your own artistic abilities. So many people say to me they have no artistic ability at all, they can't even draw a happy face. I feel we all have the ability to create. We need inspiration, information, a plan to follow and admiration. The purpose of this class is to inspire all of you. I will show you just how easy it is. If you practice you can create anything you want to. I want to let you know the steps it takes to come up with a successful design using anyone or all of the following applique techniques.

One of the best things about using kites as your artistic medium is that you get instant gratification.

You don't have to have a private showing at some expensive gallery or hire a promoter. Just take your creation outdoors on a windy day and send it up into the sky. You have your own private gallery and an immediate audience to admire your work.

Keep Learning from the cradle to the grave

Planning

90% planning and 10% doing. I am 57 years old and I think I finally have it. Not having a plan to start with you can wind up like I did having to store all the fabric I have bought for one project or other. Every once in a while I take a look see through my collection of fabric. Certain pieces sit at the bottom of the plastic storage container I keep them in, it means I probably bought that particular piece for something I had in mind 10 years ago but never finished it because I did not follow a plan. Having gained a certain amount of wisdom as I have grown older, I no longer buy any fabric that I am not going to make into something at the specific time I need it and will do it. Fortunately most of the material I have saved is in ripstop and I have a fine collection alright.

In order to save yourself the cost of storage space you might consider following a Plan. The first step of which is not to buy the fabric first. My advice is to create the plan first. The first question you should ask yourself when planning a kite project is what type of kite do I want and what do I want it to look like. Single line, dual line, large kite, small kite, soft kite framed kite. Narrow your plan to a specific kite type. If you have an inspiration for a design of what you would like to see in the sky say Betty Boop. Look for a kite style that will best display your design. Keep in mind that your kite will be flying at least 50-300 feet from the ground so keep the design simple. Some of the things to keep in mind in your planning phase are the Design you want to applique onto a kite, the type of kite, and the size of the kite.

Design

Choose a design that will have a great billboard effect. When you look at a billboard you are looking at larger than life designs. The actual drawing is missing many of the details you would see in a Rembrandt painting or a closeup photo. Your eyes fill in the detail automatically as your brainrecognizes familiar patterns.

How to find your design. Any thing might inspire your design. Once you get the bug to make your own kite or banner you will see designs in everything your eyes behold . It's almost like a Stephen King novel. One thing I would like to stress at this point and this is really the spooky part, is that after you make a few kites that may be dead on copies of someone else's artwork, you will find the urge to create your own artwork. You won't realize it at first but it will start showing up after you do about ten kites. Am I telling you to copy? No. I feel I can't stop anyone from copying but I can encourage people to look for their own talents. You can get your inspiration from many places.

Start a scrapbook of things you find in books or magazines. See a sign you like, photograph it and paste it in your scrapbook. I have quite a few of books. Everytime I get the urge to sew something, I look at my scrapbooks

It is much easier to have the unfulfilled ideas in a book than scattered some where that takes time to find when you want it. Buy your self a sketch book, a real bonified sketch book and hook a pencil to it. Start doodling and pretty soon you will be drawing things. Try figures, stick figures, try anything you see. Just sketch no matter what it looks like. With each sketch you do, you will find yourself doing things you never imagined you could come up with. Pretty soon you will have some original artwork. You open compartments to your mind that you never knew about.

Original artwork is work that comes from your own vision and conception. Work that is conceived and fulfilled by the author. George Peters and Ron Gibian and Bobby Stanfield have created original artwork. If their works are marked with © Copyright (author) followed by the date, you should not even think of using that work and calling it your own. If you should build something similar, as an inspiration, credit should be given to the originator. Best of all call the author and get permission.

Personally, I feel taking a piece of artwork from one medium, say a T-shirt, and putting it on another medium, such as a kite, is an iffy situation. The artwork is original but the medium or format is different. If you copy another artist, kite or banner, dead on and take credit for it, this downright infringement without the permission of the author.

Format

In Planning for building your piece you should next look at how you want your design to be organized, arranged, or laid out. What shape would give your design its best showcase?. In the case of a kite format, most people choose a Diamond or maybe even a Rokkaku because they seem easy to make.

They happily go about cutting and sewing the kite together but when it comes time to fly the piece, they realize their wonderful design is distorted into something they never envisioned. Looking at your format ahead of time will alleviate t disappointment. Banners can have the same difficulty especially when you want to use letters.

  1. Kites or Banner Size and Shape

    Keep in mind

  2. Other considerations:
If your design passes the miniature test, make a larger size to see how it will fly. Look at all the different considerations, then go ahead and layout the format any size you want. A kite in the sky is a statement. You want it to appear as you originally conceived it. Planning for that event is the best way to get the results you want. Adhering to a plan will get you close to what you expect without wasting time, money, labor and space for storing all the items you bought but didn't use

Medium

A means of expression as determined by the material or creative methods involved. An intervening substance through which something is transmitted or carried on. Once you have chosen your design and the format you want to use to convey it, you can go forward with a sense of direction. The next step will be transferring your design onto the medium you want to use to carry your design. In this case we are discussing fabric so the next section will be about how we get the design into the format (kite size and shape) and onto the medium of fabric.

Types of fabric for use in kites banners or flags

  1. Synthetics You can distinguish a synthetic fabric from a natural fiber by simply taking a scrap of the fabric and holding a match or lighter to it. If the fabric immediately melts and forms a little ball, you are dealing with a synthetic fiber or one that is manmade.

    The most common synthetics are nylons and polyesters. There are all types of derivations but we will just concern ourselves with nylons and polyesters.

    Nylon and polyester are the fibers. Taffeta and ripstop are the weave of the fibers.

    Another term is denier which simply means the thickness or thinness of the fiber.

    Taffeta and common Ripstop are pretty much the same denier. Oxford is another form of nylon and sometimes polyester but it has coarser threads than taffeta or ripstop. Sometimes you will hear the work pick count. This simply means the number of threads in a piece. You can find very sheer taffetas, this means they have finer threads and fewer of them. If you want to go farther into the technicalities of fabric than we have just discussed, you can contact the fabric manufacturers.

    None of this is really all that important. After a while you will discover the fabric that appeals to you the most and you will use that. What is of some importance is the weight of the fabric and the amount of coating found on the fabric and the UV factor. In the past few years there was much concern over the weight of fabric that was used, especially on Sport Kites. Most of it was a result of over marketing. The graphs and color charts flew around like you wouldn't believe. Here a coefficient there a coefficient. So much time was spent trying to outdo each other's vocabulary that a whole bunch of fun time was lost.

    For kite making, I prefer coated ripstop nylons and polyesters for kites. I do use taffetas and oxford nylons and polyesters for banners and flags. The breakdown is simple. Coated ripstops are too noisy for banners and flags and do not last all that long when battered by the wind. Coated fabrics are great for most kites though. The coating adds a stabilizing factor to the fabric decreasing bias stretch and almost eliminates fraying.

    Coating is either laid on one side of the fabric such as Carrington or Chakara or is embedded into the fibers as a resin like Texlon, Bainbridge, Dimension fabrics , North Cloth Icarex./Teijan Sometimes the coating is too thick and weakens the fibers. Over coated fibers become brittle and weak. I have found that I prefer fabric that does not have a heavy coating.

    Coated ripstop nylon or polyester used to be available in different weights. This seemed to be only a passing phase. You may still hear some people refer to 1.5oz, 3/4oz, 1/2oz ripstop. The 1.5 oz spinnaker nylon is not coated cloth, it is calendered or heated when it is manufactured so it will lie flat. 3/4oz and 1/2oz are indeed coated but there is less distinction made between the two anymore. The weight refers to 1 sailmakers yard of fabric which used to be 36" x 36" that piece weighed in at 3/4oz. 1.5 oz spinnaker is favored for larger kites and some banners. It has more color saturation and is great for applique.

  2. Natural fibers are fibers that are not manmade. When heated with a match these fibers merely scorch or turn into ash. Needless to say they aren't suitable for hot cutting. Many people use natural fibers to make kites because they take to dyes and paint very well. Applique techniques can be used with natural fibers but the range of designs is limited. Nantucket Kiteman used to make wonderful 8 pointed star kites with striped fabric. He cut striped fabric into triangles and sewed the fabric back together into wonderful patterns. Natural fibers are porous. Kites made with natural fibers fly very well. The porosity creates a bit of drag that stabilizes the kite. Steve Brockett has made some beautiful hand painted kites out of cotton. Do not limit yourself to synthetic fibers. Dave and Dianne Butler from Oregon have created some wonderful hand painted natural fiber kites. Silk, cotton and rayon are all natural fibers
  3. Colors: The variety and shades of colors of coated ripstop nylon and polyester that are available seem endless. However, many fabric manufactures may produce a certain color one time but you many never see it again. Each batch of fabric produced has a slightly different shade and amounts of color. The best argument for planning ahead is being able to buy enough fabric of one shade or dye lot to complete a piece.

Transferring design to format to medium

Getting your design to your kite shape then to the fabric can be accomplished in a variety of ways. I usually start by making a pattern of the tested kite shape and size out of brown or white butcher paper. I take my design that I've traced onto vellum, tissue paper or lightweight clear plastic and project it onto the wall with my overhead projector. Then I paste the kite pattern onto a wall and adjust the drawing to fit. I use this technique with large designs that won't fit onto my 4'x8' table.
  1. Grid: If you do not have an overhead projector or are using a small format kite pattern, you can use the grid technique to transfer your design. Take your design and photocopy it onto graph paper. Draw your kite shape around the design in scale to the actual size you want. Draw 1" squares on your kite pattern then simply scale up you design by filling in the grids and connecting the line. This method is somewhat tedious but it can give you a sense for free hand drawing.
  2. Pantograph: This incredible tool is worth its weight in gold for those people who want to save a little bit of time. The pantograph will enlarge or reduce in 25 ratios from 11/8 to 8 times.
  3. Photocopy: Another time saving device for enlarging or reducing a design is a photocopy machine. You have to experiment quite a bit to get this technique to work. If your design needs to be enlarged to fit the size of your format you can do it in segments. Each segment is limited to 8.5" x 11" or 11" x 14". A complete design can be enlarged to the size you want by pasting all the segments together to get your amplified design.
  4. Free hand: If none of the above tools are available you can resort to just transferring by hand, especially, if you have chosen an abstract design. Just divide the kite format into sections and transfer your design in like areas. This exercise will help you develop your own drawing skills

Pattern Techniques

Freehand Patterns aid in applique techniques. Some artists like Helen Morgan, of Monday Lunch simply sketches a design in pencil directly onto the fabric and sews one layer of fabric onto of another and cuts away the portion she doesn't want. This is what I call the free hand technique. To me this is the ultimate method for applique but I can't say that I believe in my ability enough to blithely walk up to a piece of fabric and draw and cut.

Paper Patterns: Another method to transfer patterns is to draw your design onto paper, lay your kite fabric on top of the design. By using light colors of fabric you can trace the design directly onto the fabric. This then becomes the base substrate that you work with. Other colors are added in the areas and are all sewn at once then cut away. This is similar to the technique of Randy Tom and Jose Sainz. All the different layers become part of the kite. Larger amounts of fabric are required.

Hard Patterns: If you want to produce a piece of work that has clear cut edges,and does not require large amounts of fabric. You might want to try making hard patterns out of oak tag, light gauge aluminum, poster board or laminate. Employing this method for applique is more time consuming but creates a different effect. I used this method for the Rokkadoodle Ku and most of the kites I have made.

Traced paper patterns can stored by simply rolling them up and and rubber banding them. Hard patterns require a bit more space for storage. Hard patterns usually require hot cutting. This has a detrimental affect on the paper or cardboard pattern because a little pattern gets burned away each time. Laminate or metal patterns are better suited for this technique. Deb Cooley hand cuts all her metal patterns and this accounts for the sharpness of her designs.

White Bird uses hard patterns to hot cut all their designs since they use taffeta. The clean uncharred edges of their applique indicate that they hot cut on smooth unpitted glass. Making a pattern for each piece of applique of a design allows for only one or two pieces of fabric to be layered at one time. The finished work is almost one piece of fabric. If you view the piece from both sides, it will essentially look the same on both sides.

Stack Markers: When making a large number of the same kite, it is possible to stack almost 50 layers of "3/4oz" ripstop nylon and make a large # of kites. The Rainbow Aerial Star used to be made using this method. A predetermined length of fabric is laid out on a long table. When 50 layers of each color are rolled out, a paper "marker" is put on top and stapled to all the layers. This marker has the patterns traced onto it from hard patterns. Staples are place in key areas to hold the pattern place. A long armed stapler and regular staples are used. 50 layers of ripstop is about the maximum amount that can be stapled at once. We used an upright cutter to do our job. Stan Swanson uses a hot tacker to weld the layers together and a utility knife to cut. his pieces out. Too much muscle for me but if you got it use it. I preferred my upright blade and it paid for itself over the many years I used it.

Laser Cutters: The ultimate tool for making applique kites is the laser cutter. Before Joel Sholz left the industry he was making each kite indivudually. Hot cutting each piece. Joel now simply scans and digitizes all his patterns into his computer and programs each piece to be hot cut and spit out. Of course it is much more complex than that. This great new tool is also employed by Soundwinds Air Arts and Prism Kites. Now that we have our pieces cut and ready to go. We can move onto the next steps of applique. Attaching the cut pieces of fabric to the background format can be a trial. Fortunately a few wise people have gotten together at kite making retreats to share their numerous techniques. The Maryland Kite Retreat , The Fort Worden Kitemakers Conference, Oregon Kitemakers Retreat and Junction Texas have all produced a plethora of kite making tips and techniques as well as kite kits. By attending these I have learned so much. People asked me why I take classes since I have taught so many classes. My response it that there is always something new to learn. Keeping my mind active is accomplished by constantly looking for knowledge. Never close your mind to new ideas.

Types of Bonding or attaching fabric to fabric

Coated ripstop nylon is so slippery that many neophytes find is too difficult to tame without giving it much chance. The first step in taming the fabric is to have a well tuned sewing machine available. I do not plan to go into that area at this time but I highly recommend having a well-adjusted machine available before going any further. That is unless you want to sew everything by hand. And that is possible. When I first started making kites, Louise Crawford hand sewed and appliqued all her kites

Sewing

We are on the home stretch now. Once you are finally ready to take your piece to the sewing machine, you should make sure the machine is in primed condition for finishing your piece. The thread tension should be tested ahead of time, the machine should be well oiled but not over oiled so as to get machine oil on your piece and a sharp needle that fits your thread should be ready to go. Stitch length should be set to a suitable length and seam width determined ahead of time. Let's go through a little check list just to make sure all the parameters are met for a successful applique project.
  1. Sewing Machine: I recommend any well adjusted machine that has:
  2. Thread. The are so many great threads available at this time, I would be hard pressed to recommend any one of them. There are Sulky threads, Metrocene threads , monofilament, decorative, metallic etc. All of these are just great but as a neophyte save your money and use regular Polyester cotton core thread. It will do the trick and save you a lot of money. However don't try to be too cheap and buy bargain brands.
  3. Needles. Again read you machine manual to find the right type of needle. Some have round heads and some have a flat side to them. Some are short and some are long. Refer to your user's manual
  4. Tools: There is a whole raft of tools available to aid you in you quest of the art of applique. Tools made the job easier but they don't do the job for you. Learning to use these tool is a craft. All applique artists have their favorite tools and you too will find the ones that meet your needs. I will just go through a few of mine.

Different types of Applique

Applique is not just applique when you are using synthetic fibers. There are many different techniques available. Both in natural fibers and synthetic fibers. I try to follow both closely because one technique can begat another. I have taken the liberty to give my own name to some of the methods I have encountered simply because I have never seen a name given to the different methods. I have listed many by either the author of the work or the technique used to attach one piece of fabric to another. There is always room for many other forms of applique that can be added to the above list. I feel even the paper forms found on tissue paper kites should be added but then a whole new book can be written about this topic. This class is better with examples of the work shown in demonstration. As I add to this piece, pictures will be added.

Reference Books for Kite Patterns and Art:

Suppliers of tools