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My parents - or to be exact: my mother - :-)    want a new tablerunner. They still love the fabric I used for the cushions, now they want a tablerunner with leaves.
Leaves? Hm. I have this new toy Accuquilt..   And yes - Accquilt offers a die with leaves.

First I run a test with paper, Accuquilt says you can do that. Now I knew which shape and size the fabric must have (I don't want to waste fabric).

Then I ironed Heat&Bond lite onto the back of the fabric and cut the fabric into the right size (with ruler and rollcutter).

Now the play-part begins! Fabric-pieces on the die, cutting-mat on the fabric and turning the handle.

Tadaaah!  A bunch of beautiful leaves!

It was easy to iron the leaves on the tablerunner-fabric (the photos show a test).
But - the book says you have to fix the applique-pieces by hand or machine.
Hand is a no-go - the fusible is too thick and stiff.
I tried machine-sewing. My beloved Pfaff has many stitches.
But even if you consider that I used the wrong thread-colour (on purpose) it looks awful.
The leaves are cut very detailed with a lot of sharp edges and turns. That's the advantage of the Accuquilt-dies! But these edges are not good for the stitches. Or better (or worse) the stitches are not good for the sharp edges. I tried SoFine (Superior) and even monofilament. It just didn't work.

Next try: I ironed the leaves on the fabric and did NOT sew them. I washed the fabric 3 times in the washing machine and cycled it with highspeed ( 1.400 turns).

And the leaves still look good!
And since my parents don't plan to serve a three-course-dinner on that tablerunner (they want to use it for decoration) it's unlikely that the runner will get so dirty that they have to wash it every week.

I consulted with my mother and decided 'Iron yes, sewing no'.
 

But: before I could iron anything, I had to prepare the fabric. It is a simple layer of fabric, no backing, not a quilt.
Accuquilt recommends prewashing with fusible appliques.
Great. I hate prewashing. The fabric always looses lots of threads at the cutting edges even if I zigzag the edge. And it always comes out of the machine with deep wrinkles which are very hard to iron out.
I hate prewashing.
Right at that moment I found a tip at Pinterest for a genius method. The article is here  at FrommyCarolinahome.com. Carole mentions a video of Kaye Wood. The idea is from Mary Jane Holcomb.

I made everything as she described and folded the cutting edges inwards. The result was unbelievable: No fraying and almost no wrinkles. And these few wrinkles were very easy to iron out. Genius!!
I did not take any photos, sorry. But Carole has many. And of course Kaye shows it in her video, it just takes longer to watch the video.

Then I had to hem the edges. It's no problem to turn the edge twice and sew it. But what to to do with the corners? Since my class at Annelie's I know how to make beautiful mitered corners at bindings - but this piece of cloth is not a quilt and has no binding.
Hm. Pinterest... The tipp is here and comes from Australia. Again - I forgot to take photos. But there are a lot of photos in the article! I followed each step except the blue pen. That's how my corners look now:

This is the finished piece - aren't these dancing leaves cute?