One day I was moaning to my quilter mum about the difficulty of appliqueing elements of my W Class Cushions. "You need Vliesofix," she told me sagely. Apparently quilters know these things.
With haste I hied myself to GJ's Fabrics - my preferred quilting fabric store - and asked for "this appliqueing stuff called Visoflix or something like that." A knowledgable staff member told me they stocked Easyfix (off the roll in 30cm or 70cm widths), which in her experience was a superior product. Just iron it to the fabric you want to applique, cut out the shape, peel off the backing paper and iron it onto its destination. A quick bit of topstitching and you're done. Magic!
I got my metre of Easyfix home and started playing. It was genius for normal applique - if only I'd had it when I made
Jack's cloth book!
However, it wasn't right for my W Class Cushions. I wanted the windows to lay behind the body of the tram, not in front. I agonised over the problem for a few days.
One night while giving Jack his bedtime bottle I was pondering my problems as usual. Suddenly the scales fell from my eyes and I realised how Easyfix could be used for reverse applique.
This technique can be used when the relative depth of your applique is important (as with my cushions), or perhaps if you wanted to add an applique shape to a textured fabric such as corduroy. I've only tried it on cotton broadcloth, so if you have success (or failures) with other fabrics please tell me all about it!
Sorry for swapping between centimetres and inches, that's the way my mind's working at the moment.
Step 1: Choose where you want to put your applique feature. I'm putting mine inside the rectangle.
Step 2: Cut a piece of Easyfix larger than the shape you're going to applique. You want at least 1cm extra on all sides. You may want to increase this even more for heavy fabrics such as corduroy.
Step 3: Put your foreground fabric on the ironing board wrong side up. Cover your applique area with the piece of Easyfix, paper side up. The meshed side is in contact with the wrong side of your fabric. Give it a good pressing - don't drag the iron around as it may crease the fabric or Easyfix. I use a very hot, very steamy iron.

Turn your fabric over - the Easyfix will have adhered and won't fall off. Press the right side of your fabric.
Incidentally, I use a non-stick iron shoe which my patternmaking teacher recommended. I saw similar ones for sale at the Stitches & Craft Fair. I highly recommend picking one up - you can have your iron set at top temperature no matter what you're ironing and it won't scorch. To take these photos I left my iron sitting on the fabric for over ten seconds without leaving a mark. I've also got a complementing ironing board cover which I think involves teflon. It's a great combo for pressing seams because boy, do they stay pressed! Everything gets very hot though so you have to watch your fingers.
Step 4: If you're appliqueing more than one shape, repeat the above steps for the other bits of applique. If your applique shape is very large you might want to cut strips of Easyfix approximately one inch wide and iron them on so you've got half an inch on either side of your cutting line. I do this because I'm extremely stingy. I'm sure the time I spend measuring and cutting strips of Easyfix completely negates the few cents I'm saving.
Step 5: One your fabric has cooled down, draw your cutting line on the right side of the fabric. I trace a template using a mechanical pencil because it gives a fine line. I trust my washing machine to take care of any leftover marks. Use a water soluble marker or dressmakers pencil if you prefer.
Step 6: Cut out your applique area, following the cutting line. You can use a rotary cutter for straight lines but be very careful not to get too close to the corners. It's a good idea to have some Fray Stoppa on hand! If you've got a lovely new sharp blade in your cutter you probably don't want to use it for this job. Trim corners and curves with embroidery scissors. The trimmed piece can be useful - use it as a stiffener for another project, or cut out smaller shapes to applique onto other projects.
Step 7: Peel off the paper. The Easyfix mesh will be bonded to the reverse side of your fabric.
Step 8: Lay your background fabric right side up on the ironing board and give it a good pressing. Lay your foreground fabric right side up over it, making sure the Easyfix isn't poking out around the edges of your background fabric - it won't come off your ironing board. The Easyfix mesh is in contact with the right side of your background fabric. Give it a good hard pressing.

Flip it over and give the reverse side the same treatment. If there is a bit of Easyfix that hasn't been covered by the background fabric you'll want to cover it up with a scrap the right size, to protect your iron. You could peel the scrap off later if you wanted to, but the next time you iron the item the Easyfix will stick to whatever it comes into contact with.
Step 9: Top stitch the foreground fabric around your applique shape. This will keep the pieces from accidentally separating, and to emphasise the depth of the applique. Use a matching colour thread if you want the top stitching to not be noticable or if you're doing lots of curves, or a contrasting colour to add a bit of pop. I try to remember to pull the top thread through to the reverse side when I'm on the home stretch, to avoid unpicking a mess later. Don't do any backstitching as it'll look yucky.
Step 10: Pull the thread ends through to the reverse side, tie them off and trim off the ends. Lovely!