Hope: Making Stems With A Bias Tape Maker

This is my favourite way to make vines and stems for applique foliage and flowers.

When considering a pattern, I think about whether an embroidery stitch, tracing from pattern or bias stem would work best.

Sometimes, especially when creating traditional or historic style quilts, imperfect stems look best. The size variations might exist to give a pattern a 'hand drawn' or naive look. In those cases, I simply trace the vines or stems from the pattern sheet like every other applique shape and work from there. 

However, most of the time I turn to my trusty bias tape makers to those lines.

I like to starch my fabrics first, helping to create a neat bias tape.

This is what my fabric looks like before it enters the tape.

Then I simply feed it through.

Sometimes the feed needs some help with a pin to wiggle the first bit out.

As soon as it appears, I start ironing the fabric tape to set it.

It looks like this. And then I simply repeat. Easy, isn't it?

If you aren't already creating bias tape for your stems and vines, give it a go. It's a satisfying technique for your applique that allows you to create neat and uniform lines with the least amount of hassle.