Review: Applique Your Way

Let’s do some full disclosures first: Chronicle Books sent me this review copy. I’m blogging as part of the Applique Your Way Blog Tour. And, see that tote bag on the cover – with the apples? I made that!

Kayte Terry has done a great job with Applique Your Way, using several techniques to make a diverse range of projects. This skirt is a really fun application of reverse applique.

(Which is also the technique my apple tote is made with, btw.)

The book covers hand-sewn, machine-sewn, and the aforementioned reverse applique, plus some non-traditional appliques using adhesives. The instructional pages are mostly text-based, with some illustration of key points.

Here’s another wearable project I like: a plain raincoat, jazzed up with cut-outs from a bold print fabric. In fact, most of the wearable projects begin with a readymade garment, and use the applique for customization – an approach I really like.

There are home decor projects and gifts as well as wearables, and a nice range of simple-to-complex projects. Aren’t these circle coasters cute?

I thought this was particularly innovative: fabric picture frames “appliqued” to a wall. (And it’s renter-safe, by the way.)

The project instructions are also in mostly-text form, with a few key diagrams here and there. For this reason, I’d tend to recommend Applique Your Way to intermediate crafters and beyond. It’s not that the projects themselves are too difficult. I just tend to feel like absolute beginners might need a bit more visual reference.

(That said, appliqued yo-yos? Swoon!)

The design of the book is gorgeous, and because Chronicle is good at such things: spiral binding! Envelope of pattern sheets in the back!

You can catch a few more project photos over here, and keep up on the rest of the blog tour here. Definitely flip through this one on your next bookstore visit.