 Hi, I'm Kimberly with the Fat Quarter Shop and today we're with Jill Finley of Jolulee Studios and she's shown us how to prep her applique and now she's going to show us how to hand stitch. Okay Kimberly, I want to show you a few of the supplies that I use when I'm stitching. Of course you're going to need a needle and this is my favorite needle. It's bowin, it's made by bowin in France and that's a hand stitching needle. This is the applique needle size 11 and I like the bowin needles because they are one of the only needle makers in the world that still today sends the inside of the eye so that your thread doesn't get those burrs and and break and so they're really great and they also have a really thin shank and they don't have a bulge at the eye of the needle so it doesn't leave a hole in your fabric as your stitching so you can't see your stitches. So it's a great needle and the next thing we're going to need is a needle threader. That's just because I'm old. You probably don't need the needle threader because you're so young but this is handy for us older folks and I'm going to use some black thread today because so you can see some contrasting thread because I'm going to stitch on the pink but I'm going to use black. Normally I would match my thread to my applique, not to the background but to the applique piece. So and this is how the needle threader works. She just put the needle in with the eye side down and then just put the thread in there and pop the button and your needle is threaded. I wanted to tell you a little bit about the thread I use. I use Arifilth thread which I know that you use and I have my own collection with the Arifil and this is my collection right here. It's got some wonderful colors. This is called Everyday Colors. So it's got all the colors that I use in my fabric designs. My fabric collections. And then another thing that I use is a product I've developed. It's called a polka dot and this is a little sticky thimble. You just stick it on the end of your finger. Wherever you get that hole in your finger when you're pushing it back you're your needle. And every quilter knows where it is. When you're sewing on bindings and you get that sore finger, this is where you stick your polka dot. And so I just put it sticks right on my finger. It has a little bit of texture. Can you feel that texture on there? It's kind of rubbery and it's very thick. So you can't push your needle through and it won't ever poke you. And that texture will allow your needle to kind of direct your needle and it won't slip. All right so we're ready to stitch. And before we do I want to tell you a little bit about our fill thread. I love using the our fill thread because it's a nice thin weight and it doesn't show as your stitching. And thread has a nap. Did you know that coming off of a spool? And so it's designed to use the end of the spool that comes off. We want to thread the lead end and not the end that we've cut because that way your thread won't tangle when you are stitching. So what I do is I just make a loop and stick the tail end through it three or four times. It's just a simple knot. It's the same knot you get when you twist your thread around and roll to the end. Sometimes I don't do that very good. So that's just the way I do it. All right Kimberly I'm going to stitch this leaf and I've come up with my needle through the background from the from the back into this very bottom point. Now I'm right-handed so I'm going to stitch from right to left and I stitch on the edge that's away from me. Not this edge that's toward me. So I'm going to pick up my piece and I put my needle underneath the back, underneath the advocate piece about a needle's width and then turn and come out the fold. And I'll show you so I reach underneath the piece right where my right mark on my thread comes out and travel and come out the fold. Push it with my little polka dot that's on my fingers. See I kind of hold the needle, seat it in the polka dot and then I can direct it where it's going to go. Underneath the piece turn, come out the fold. Okay so I'm just going to move on down this and you can just watch as I stitch I reach underneath turn, come out the fold and what happens when I reach underneath that's going to turn the edge of the advocate piece and down to meet the background. Instead of laying flat on the top it's going to create this nice little puffed curve. So here we go and this little polka dot makes it so that I can stitch quickly. When I get towards the point I do take my stitches a little bit closer together because I've got to tuck this flag. Remember that extra piece of fabric? I've got to tuck that in so I don't want that to come out the other side. So I'm going to put my stitches a tiny bit closer together. Okay and when I get to the very point I come right out the very tip of the advocate piece and then I turn it to go down the other side and when I turn it to get ready to go down the other side I've got the thread coming right out the very point of the advocate piece. I'm going to kind of tag on that thread to sharpen that point, hold that there then I just grab this flag with my needle and tuck it under. See how easy that was? And we talked earlier about not trimming that flag off so that makes it really simple to just tuck in and then a way we go just make sure there's any any loose threads that are tucked in as well. And of course if you have matching thread this is going to look better but you can hardly see our stitches even with the black thread. So and then you just continue on down this side doing the same thing. Reach underneath come out the fold. Continue on down until you get to the next flag which is on this point and when we get to this flag when our stitching is done we'll just grab this flag and same thing just tuck it under with the needle and then stitch away. Okay I've totally stitched around that leaf now I'm going to go to the back of the background turn this over and then I just do your simple slipknot where you take a little bite of thread fabric make a loop and stick your needle through it and I do that twice. There we go. Jill I really enjoyed learning about the hand stitching. Do you think you could show us how to machine stitch? Sure let's do that on the next video.