Applique pressing sheet?

Does anybody have one of these? My Snow Sweet Shoppe BOM is very tedious with LOTS of little pieces. After having half of them move around on me while trying to arrange the design in January, I picked this up at the quilt show a few weeks ago, thinking it might help.

Anyways, I have a question for someone who's used this thing before....do I peel the backing of my heat bond off ALL layers, or just the upper layers and leave it on the bottom-most layers? Does that even make sense? Say I've got a big snowman shape for the bottom and a bunch of little pieces that go on top of him. Do I peel the backing off the snowman piece, or just the others?

Thhis thing is supposed to make it so your design ends up being ONE piece to fuse down onto your fabric later. I'm just a little confused here....

I have done it both ways... but I think the idea is to peel all the paper off so its ready to put on your fabric... works really swift... just peels right off.. good luck and enjoy

Bratt I peel all the backing off, it proved mored fiddly than I cared for leaving bits and pieces of backing on and occasionally when trying to get a backing piece of paper off, like on your snowman body you can loosen one of the top pieces. Peel all the backing then start assembling ironing pieces as you got. The biggest tip is dont peel the assembled snowman off the pressing sheet until its cooled you can make the edges fray if you pull it off before it cools then it simply comes off in one piece and you iron it onto your block. Oh and if it ends up kind of thick when all assembled well once I ironed it on I let it cool then flip the block and give a quick press on the back too, just to make sure its adhered.

Have fun, the pressing sheets really are handy

Thanks ladies! I finally finished tracing all my pieces for two SSS blocks AND the angel pattern so I have something I can test it with before using fabric that cost me a ton and messing that up. I figure I'll just use some scraps on the angel and maybe see about making something with that for my aunt, since she likes angels. I tried reading the directions, but iot really didn't give me in the way of instructions on how to use it.

This is the product, in case anyone else is interested.

http://webstore.quiltropolis.net/stores_app/Browse_Item_Details.asp?store_id=242&page_id=23&Item_ID=1000

Oh crap, I have another question now. Usually I cut out the middle of the heat bond on bigger pieces. If I do that when using the sheet, will it still work or will it be more trouble than it's worth? I figured I might want to ask before cutting and ironing my pieces, since my next step would be to cut out that middle part that just gets in the way.

No it should still work fine, I have done that before too :-) Your gonna love the pressing sheet, they are fun to work with. I keep mine folded in my sewing caddy, its about 6yrs old now, laura learned to use it on the tisket tasket blocks, they last and last!

Thanks Gimpy! I'll try cutting my test piece and fusing that to see how it works.

Have fun and make sure you show us the snowmen, cant wait to see

When I'm fusing tiny pieces, I always use a small craft iron. It's easier to use a pin, seam ripper tip or stileto to hold the piece and use the craft iron to fuse.

http://www.allbrands.com/products/abp01382.html?ovchn=SPRI&ovcpn=Froogle&ovcrn=Froogle&ovtac=CMP

This is like the one I have.

So how many times have you burned yourself, JoAnn? I use the little Clover iron too but darn. I wish there was a guard over the long hot rod.

I dont have a little iron but I use either the seam ripper or a long shanked pin to hold the teeny pieces in place when Im ironing them down. I never have wtaer in my iron either, I got burned too often with a sudden shot of steam, now I keep the iron dry and use a bottle of water when necessary - I havent been burnt in yrs (fingers crossed!!)

Hmm. That sounds like how I ended up doing January after getting really mad at the pieces. Put one down, fuse it, add another layer. The only thing is Mom told me I'm not supposed to do it that way becasue each time you refuse to fabric, it loosens the bond. I knew that, but it wasn't working any other way!

The angel came out ok last night, but I really need to get some better heat bond before using my good fabric. The stuff I have now stinks and it s PITA to peel off.

maybe if you just sorta 'tap' your iron to the top piece for fusing it temporarily until you are done with getting all the pieces put together and then give it a nice iron fuse??

thats what I do Mamu, just give it a gentle smidgen of heat to get it to stick then fuse it all properly once assembled, thats with the itty bitty ones that move around on you

Only once, Annmarie. Which is surprising because right now I have a big scar healing on my arm from touching it to my regular iron. Mine does have a guard on it, but I reached over to pick it up and didn't look, so #&$*&#^&. Not good.

I've got my fingers crossed right now. I just finished cutting out all the pieces for the first block and am going to try to get this put together soon. I need to retrace all but one of the pieces for the second block yet. I went to Joann's the other day and got a 5 1/4 yard roll of Heatbond AND 5 packs of Steam a Seam. At least ONE of those had to work better than the other crap I had, right? The paper on the heatbond has peeled off more like I remember, so I think this is the right stuff.

Both are completely fused! That was fairly easy! The second one didn't go quite as smoothly as the first, but I still got it taken care of. I did have a beak that wasn't completely attached to the first, but since it was just one piece (and a tiny one at that), it was ok.

I will take pictures, but I want to get them sewn down first. I have January's block done except for her face, but keep procrastingating over that part for some reason.

YEAH!!!

A tip for using those craft irons. Keep it in a really tall mug so that only the handle sticks out. You can't accidently grab the rod. I have not burned myself since i quit using that goofy little stand that came with it.

when do we get to see bratt?

When I finish sewing it down? I worked on the one most of last week during the evenings while watching TV and have it about half done. Since I need to work on my April UFO this week, I'm not quite sure yet when I'll go back to working on the drunken pie maker block, as Mom called it.

iof you really want, I can take a few pictures later, since I never got around to completely finishing January's yet. I still need to do her face.

Gimpy, welcome back. I hope you had a good vacation!

Thanks Bratt for the welcome back, vacation was crazy, we worked non stop, phew, one night I just started watching the clock from 7.30pm onwards wanting to crawl into bed LOL but my parents are happy and thats what matters. Take pics when you are ready, Im glad the sheet worked out well for you, they really are great