Introduction: Learning Terms

 It's important that we are all speaking the same language, art-wise, so I thought we'd begin with stuff you probably already know, in an attempt to get on the same page. Beginning with some color terms: Hue is the name of the color, i.e. turquoise, or carmine, or gold.

Value is the intensity of that color

Intensity or saturation is the depth of the color, ranging from pale to deep.

Tint is that color mixed with another color, usually black or white, but it can be mixed with its compliment, i.e. yellow mixed with a bit of purple will result in a muddier yellow.

Shade is that color mixed with black usually. 

Tone is that color mixed with gray.

Mud is my term and I mean colors that have all three primaries mixed together in varying amounts, resulting in earthier mixes, not a bad thing, just not clear bright colors.

More color terms; On the color wheel we have primary, secondary and tertiary colors. 

primary are Red Yellow and Blue, or in dyes/inks/paints we call them fucshia, yellow, and cyan.

Secondary colors are orange, green and violet. Tertiary colors are yellow-green, yellow-orange, red-orange, blue-green, blue-violet, red-violet.
Analogous colors are those next to each other on the color wheel.
Complements are those colors opposite each other on the color wheel. Red-green, blue-orange, yellow-violet.

 For more in depth information on these terms, see this site  and this site which did all the work for me.

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How to fuse: See this post.

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How to clean your iron. O dear, yes the fusible will get on the iron if you are not careful, or if like me you are overconfident. ha!  or you can use Bounce dryer sheets, just be careful not to burn your fingers.

Or you can practice good fusing by always working with the fusible side down. 

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Fabrics: While I love cottons like sateen and Kona, fusers  have to be aware of the tightness of the weave. We want to cut fabric and not have it fray, so muslin or print cloth would be best for our purposes. Silks are wonderful to fuse, if they are not sheer, as the fusible will show through on China silks for example. Batiks can be used but fused shapes often have a tendency to peel up if not fall right off. We don't want to have to stitch down every tiny piece so be aware of using batiks for small details.
I recommend fusing near solids or one color textured hand dyes, and let's save the fancy fabric for later.