Central cross - appliqué

With the background fabric ready, I can start on the appliqué cross. This is in red velvet, but to start with, I traced the outline of the cross, and stuck the tracing paper to some felt using 505 fabric spray glue. I don't like doing this, but it does lead to a more accurate shape than just pinning.

Cut out, this gives the basic shape.

I then pinned this to a piece of the velvet, and cut around it, leaving a margin of about 1.5cm.

The 'this way up' arrow shows the direction of the pile of the velvet.

Next, I made small snips in the velvet, almost but not quite to the felt. I turned these over the felt, and tacked them down. It's important to start and finish the tacking stitches on the front of the appliqué shape, as the back won't be accessible once you come to take them out.

This is what it looks like from the back:

And the front:

I'd already marked the outline of the cross on the background fabric as a guide, so I then laid the appliqué piece onto the fabric using the running stitch outline, and stitched it down, using small, evenly spaced stitches. I then removed the tacking stitches, leaving the red velvet cross attached to the ivory velvet background.

Goldwork next!