The hardest technical thing to deal with in free motion embroidery is the distortion. Any time you stitch rhythmically and close together, the fabric will distort, trying to make room for the extra thread in it. More so if you’re using a zigzag stitch. Zigzag stitching pulls on both sides and can make a top wave like a flag.

There are several easy cures: Using a stabilizer, using a hoop, using smaller width stitches. All that being done you can still end up with a crumpled mess lying like a hat. It’s not a happy moment. It’s made worse by the fact that the fabric made by that kind of stitching is usually pretty fabulous. Just lumpy.

Can you steam it? You can try. Sometimes it helps. Can you cut it apart and put it back together? I’ve done it. It’s a last resort, but it’s better than lying in lumps.

Or you can cure it by cutting off the rumple. I’ve done that a lot with embroidered subjects. But can you do that with elements of the background? Why not!

This is a direct applique technique. I have some cheesecloth mountains for this owl in the meadow. If I stitch them down on the quilt surface I will end up waving the flag. So instead, I’m going to glue them on felt and do my detail stitching before we attach it to the front.

Do I lose something by this? Several things. I lose the look of the hand dye behind the cheesecloth, which I like quite a bit. And I lose the distortion. I hate the distortion. Do the math and make your choice.

The felt I’m using is a cheap acrylic felt from Joann’s. It’s stable, doesn’t fray, and stitches well. I’m making my mountains out of cheesecloth and Steam a Seam 2. On the back, I have a layer of Stitch and Tear stabilizer to help control the distortion and give support to the stitching.

Cheesecloth is porous. The glue will come through when you iron it. I’m using a Teflon pressing cloth to protect my iron.

The glue will come through onto my pressing cloth. I can clean that off with a Scotch Brite No Stick Scrubby.

Once I’ve got it glued down and stabilized, I can start stitching.

The stitching on these is moved through the machine from side to side. That creates a long stitch that fills the mountains quite nicely. It also distorts the fabric a lot. You can see the pull of the stitch on the fabric as the stitching fills.

When it’s all cut away the distortion is gone and all is left is a thin margin of felt that can be covered with minimal zigzag stitching. All those textured mountains with two small rows of zigzag that should not distort much.

I’ll pull off the last of the glue before I apply the mountains to the piece. I use a small square of plain cotton (something I never want to see again) as a pressing cloth and iron the embroideries on high heat. The glue will bubble through to the pressing cloth and pull right off. Make sure you remove the pressing cloth while it’s all steamy hot. Throw the cotton pressing cloth away. It will transfer that other bit of glue on to another piece if you reuse it.

This is a hard edge applique technique, because when I stitch it down, the stitching will be a visible line of polyester zigzag stitching.

Now all I need to do is stitch down the flowers, add the owl and stipple.

For more information about cheesecloth check out: The Miracle of Cheesecloth: It’s not Just for Turkey Anymore and

For more information about zigzag stitching: All About the Line: Choosing the Right Stitch