Civil Service Look and Feel

A guide to making the civil service uniforms

1. Applique

You will need:
The horse design, facing both ways
The fronts of the coat
Gold taffeta
Gold/brown thread
Machine set to zig zag
Quilters fusible web - Wonder-under, heat-n-bond, fuse-a-web or similar
Gold seed beads (I use Guterman)
Beading or sharp needle

1. Trace both horses onto the heat-n-bond. Some brands will tell you which side to use, others not. If it's not clear, very gently separate the layers at one corner. The paper will adhere more to one side of the web than the other - use the MORE adherent side to draw on.

2.Once you've copied them, roughly cut out a square around each design.

3.Carefully peel the less sticky paper from the web. Your design side should still be attached to the web.

4.Press the sticky side of your fusible web to the WRONG side of the taffeta fabric. This should stick pretty well.

5.Carefully using nail scissors cut around your designs. You should now have two horses with a paper patch stuck to one side.

6. Peel off the remaining paper, giving you two sticky fabric horses

7. Stick them to your garment fronts, trying to keep them symmetrical as per the illustration.

8. Using a dishtowel or pressing cloth to sit between the garment and your iron, press several times briefly with a hot steam iron. This should stick the design to the fabric,

9.Using a narrow zig zag on your sewing machine, topstich the edges of the horse to the fabric. This is fiddly, so take your time.

10. Finally, using your gold coloured thread, couch beads around the design, covering your machine stitching. Bascially start at one bit of the design, string 3-5 beads onto your thread and backstitch them around the design, trying to get it to look like a seamless string of beads floating around the edge. If you get "steps" or "jogs" between your five bead segments, you can run a thread through several segments that are already sewn on along a long line of the design(the horse's back, for example) to give a much smoother line.Do this all the way around both horses. Finished!

Some fusible webs don't have paper on both sides - this is ok. Just trace onto the one side of paper that you have, then, when it comes to sticking it to the fabric, lay it in position and give it a quick press with a hot steam iron - not too long but a second or so should be enough to stick it. The rest is the same.