Applique designs with three or more colors can look intimidating, but they shouldn't be. The process for creating a three-color design is exactly the same as the process for creating a single-color design. Only, there's a little more work involved. So, you might want to have some chocolate on hand.
For this tutorial, I'm using my Captain America design, which is available
here, but if you don't have the Cap, you can use any design with three different colors. Here's what to do:
1. Stitch the first outline of the design on your project.
2. Remove the hoop from your machine and adhere blue fabric over the outline using temporary spray adhesive. Place the hoop back in your machine and stitch the second outline over the blue fabric.
3. Remove the hoop from your machine again and trim the blue fabric very close to the outline stitches, leaving less than 1/8" and taking care not to clip any stitches.
4. Place the hoop back in your machine and stitch the outline of the Captain's facial features.
5. Remove the hoop from your machine. At this point. I like to go over my design with a dry iron to dissapate what's left of the spray adhesive. This will make your next step much easier.
6. Using very sharp embroidery or applique scissors, clip the blue fabric out of Captain America's eyeholes.
7. Using more temporary spray adhesive, adhere flesh-colored fabric over your entire outline.
8. Place the hoop back in your machine and stitch the second outline of the facial features. Remove the hoop from your machine and go over your design with a dry iron again.
9. Take out your scissors again and clip very close to the facial stitching, leaving less than 1/8"
10. Place the hoop back in the machine and stitch the outline for the white portion of the design. You'll notice that I've switched to white thread here. Most applique designs will ask you to use a different color of thread for each step. This helps the digitizer, and it tells your machine when to stop stitching at each step, but it really isn't necessary. Up until your final step, you can use any neutral color that you'd like. I prefer to use the same color as the final stitches. That way, I can be sure that no unwanted threads will show through on my finished design.
11. Remove the hoop from your machine and adhere white fabric over the white portions of your design with temporary spray adhesive. By now, this step should feel very familiar! Place the hoop back in the machine and stitch the outlines of the white portions of the design over your white fabric. Remove the hoop from your machine and go over the design with a dry iron one last time.
12. Trim very close to your outline stitches again. At this point, your design should look like this, which is exciting because you can start to see the shapes of your finished applique:
13. Place your hoop in your machine one more time and stitch the remainder of your design.
And you're finished! Take out the chocolate and celebrate a new design!
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