Margarita wrote:
You can glue down the applique' pieces, if you want to. I did it with Elmer's washable school glue until I got the hang of things. Now, if the applique' is small enough, I usually put one fine pin to hold it in place and go for it. I had never done machine applique' before either until a few weeks ago. We had a good discussion about using Monopoly and the Bernina 830 on the Forum under the heading of Domestic Machines/Bernina that you might want to look at. In that thread, I provided the machine settings I used to get invisible applique' to really become invisible and I was very happy with the results. Don't know what machine you're using but you might want to look at that and treat the settings as a baseline from which to make adjustments to get the results you want. Let me know if you have trouble finding it.

I am sorry to see I forgot to say Thank You! I do have some Masterpiece thread for the bobbin so tomorrow I will experiment with this. Thanks for the help.

What I forgot to say is that I am going to "hand" applique this lot, I have never machine appliqued before and am not much cop on my machine but maybe I should try this - it would certainly be quicker. Do you glue down the applique pieces?

I used monopoly to machine applique on my HST Exchange quilt. Loved the results. Used blindhem stitch, shortened it and made it much narrower than the default. You can see it on my profile. It's called "Friendship Trees".

Of course you can use MonoPoly for invisible machine applique! Pair it with a thin neutral bobbin thread like 50wt Aurifil or Masterpiece and lower your top tension to almost nothing. Do some test stitchouts to find the right tension so the bobbin thread stays on the back side and doesn't pull to the front. Also test for the stitch width and length you like. I like Blanketstitch or Blind Hem Stitch (or Vari Lock Stitch on Bernina). Oh and try a smaller needle too, because you will see the hole, but hardly see the thread in that hole!

As for your being able to see the invisible thread... bright light and magnifying reading glasses might help!

Is there any reason why I cannot use Superior thread Mono Poly for applique? I am making a scrap quilt in which there are two panels that each have 4 diamond shapes. These are made up of joined up hexagons which I had to paper piece and they are all varied colours. I don't want to change thread colour every 2 minutes and possibly at least six times as I go round the shape. Has anyone ever tried this? The thread seems very fine and strong but it is almost invisible perhaps I will go strain my vision (more!) using this thread for applique. The thread says it is iron safe up to medium heat - I do plan to machine quilt this top. Is silk thread safe to iron on hot?