Bounding Bunnies, Batman!

Remember the vintage bunny fabric that I said was full of possibilities? Well, here is the possibility I chose: I made the fabric into piles of bunny appliques. It has been years and years since I used iron-on adhesive so it was a learning experience as well as a lot of fun.

I chose Thermoweb HeatnBond Ultrahold as my adhesive and I have to say I am very impressed with how well it works and how easy it is to use. It is SO much better than the fusible web we had when I was a kid!

The bunny fabric was in pieces that were odd shapes, so I had to cut it to make fitting it to the adhesive sheet easier. My first piece turned out really well.

The smaller pieces show better how cute these appliques are going to be!

There was, however, a major problem with this fabric. It is knit, which is great because it should not ravel, but...we have rollage, Jerry! Rollage!

That's right, knit fabric likes to roll at the edges, and nothing I could do would fix that. The best method I found was pressing at one end and then stopping and unrolling the edges as well as I could, and then continuing to press like this, in small increments. The results were not what I had hoped, but could have been worse, I guess.

I wanted to test out my work, so I trimmed around a bunny who was missing a piece of ear and looked for something to stick it to. Lo and behold, I was wearing an old shirt of my husband's that has an irremovable stain so that he can't wear it to work. It is now my sleep shirt. Anyway, it was the perfect canvas for a rabbit applique. I decided the sad bunny should be peeking out of my pocket. I have to say, I like the results!

Yes, the bunny is sad, but can you blame her? She is missing part of her ear and she's just had a heavy, hot iron pressing her down over and over! You wouldn't look happy either.
I'm thinking, by the way, of adding a red ribbon bow to her ear to cover up the fact that it's not quite all there.

Things I learned while doing this project

Cover your ironing board with something, an old sheet or maybe wax paper, before you use HeatnBond. I didn't and now my ironing board has big sticky patches all over it. I may have to get a new ironing board cover! Or make one...hmmmm

HeatnBond gets very hot when you iron it. I guess that makes sense. So if you get any of it on your finger, it will hurt.

Knit fabric is a PAIN to add adhesive to. I never was able to solve the rollage problem completely on the larger sections of fabric.

When ironing the applique to the garment, use a pressing cloth (a pillowcase is great) to prevent the applique from just sticking to the iron.


PS. I found my HeatnBond at Wal Mart. It is sold by the yard and is on bolts like fabric. It is also available at craft stores and online.

Bunny appliques are no longer available in my etsy shop, but there will be cute upcycled baby clothes featuring these bunnies coming soon!