The glasses that I added to Fancy Fox II and Hazel Hedgehog II (the larger size patterns) have been so popular, that I've made up a free glasses pattern add-on for the original Fancy Fox and Hazel Hedgehog. Because all of your foxes and hedgehogs need glasses, right?
This pattern fits blocks from my original Fancy Fox and Hazel Hedgehog patterns, as well as the blocks in Fancy Forest.
The instructions included with the glasses patterns are very basic and assume that you will be applying the glasses as I did, as a simple raw-edge fusible appliqué that will then be zigzag stitched around. Here are some tips for that process:
- Always use lightweight (or "lite") fusible web. Heavyweight (or "no sew") will gum up your machine and be nearly impossible to sew through.
- Quilting solids like Kona work well for this kind of appliqué. A little bit of fraying is normal, but the amount of fraying will probably lessen as you become more skilled at sewing around the appliqué shapes. I usually use my thread snips to clean up each appliqué shape once I'm finished sewing.
- Using felt for the appliqué is a good way to avoid fraying.
- If you don't plan to wash your project, there's no reason that you can't just fuse the appliqué to your top and then rely on the quilting to hold it in place.
- It's completely fine to quilt over appliqué! I talk to a lot of quilters who are wary of doing this, but I really do think that quilting over the entire surface of a quilt with similar density results in a more polished-looking project.