My neighbor caught me off-guard yesterday afternoon by "confirming" our plans to go shopping this morning. I remembered our tentative date to be Thursday. But no matter, getting it out of the way earlier in the week was fine by me. However, her mom went to the hospital unexpectedly and she asked that we postpone our leave time until she learned more. Fine by me - I figured I could find plenty of this and that, but as the morning progressed, it was obvious to me we wouldn't be taking that trip today. Thus the unexpected time to work in my studio.
Yesterday I pondered if anyone hits the ground running on Mondays, implying that by Tuesday one would be ready to go. But I found myself no more anxious to make decisions than yesterday. I thought I could play with the quilting on Strawberry Moon but lost my nerve. Better to work on my foil samples. Here I've couched Knit-Cro-Sheen crochet thread across my glued down foil. These are the two glues that worked the best, both by Beacon: Gem-Tac and Quick Grip. The former is white and odorless, the latter clear and fumey plus a little stiffer. I had no problem sewing through either.
The question in my mind was, should I couch the thread to the fabric, then layer and quilt? Or should I layer and then couch as part of the quilting. The horizontal lines were couched before layering, the vertical ones were couched through all layers. For this particular project, I decided I liked the look of the couching raised up, not as part of the quilting. And I definitely prefer using the Gem-Tac over the Quick Grip.
With those questions answered, I decided to proceed with gluing the foil onto my journal size fabric. Since my friend had not called yet, I decided to glue the foil to the larger piece too. Only one problem - as I unfolded the piece I'd planned to use as the base, I discovered that the pattern I'd sponged on only ran part way up the fabric - about 11 inches worth and I needed at least 14. That's what I get for waiting so long to use fabric. I'd forgotten that I'd folded the fat quarter to see how much of the dye would seep into the second layer, which turned out to be not much. It was very tempting to sigh and give up on the whole idea, but I decided perhaps there was a "creative" solution that would actually improve the piece. I'd done 2 other pieces of fabric with the same dyes, so I got those out to see if they could be substituted - no not really. I considered using the piece with the much lighter portion at the top as if it were sky, but didn't like the abrupt contrast. I considered splicing a piece from the other fabrics and found a portion that was similar enough not to jar but different enough to look like it was intentional.
Here is the spliced fabric (left) sewn to the original fabric (right) with the foil arranged on top (not the final sequence). I plan to trim off part of the left side to make the piece square once I decide just where I want that splice to fall. Or should I rethink my arrangement, leave it offset?
Yesterday I pondered if anyone hits the ground running on Mondays, implying that by Tuesday one would be ready to go. But I found myself no more anxious to make decisions than yesterday. I thought I could play with the quilting on Strawberry Moon but lost my nerve. Better to work on my foil samples. Here I've couched Knit-Cro-Sheen crochet thread across my glued down foil. These are the two glues that worked the best, both by Beacon: Gem-Tac and Quick Grip. The former is white and odorless, the latter clear and fumey plus a little stiffer. I had no problem sewing through either.
The question in my mind was, should I couch the thread to the fabric, then layer and quilt? Or should I layer and then couch as part of the quilting. The horizontal lines were couched before layering, the vertical ones were couched through all layers. For this particular project, I decided I liked the look of the couching raised up, not as part of the quilting. And I definitely prefer using the Gem-Tac over the Quick Grip.
With those questions answered, I decided to proceed with gluing the foil onto my journal size fabric. Since my friend had not called yet, I decided to glue the foil to the larger piece too. Only one problem - as I unfolded the piece I'd planned to use as the base, I discovered that the pattern I'd sponged on only ran part way up the fabric - about 11 inches worth and I needed at least 14. That's what I get for waiting so long to use fabric. I'd forgotten that I'd folded the fat quarter to see how much of the dye would seep into the second layer, which turned out to be not much. It was very tempting to sigh and give up on the whole idea, but I decided perhaps there was a "creative" solution that would actually improve the piece. I'd done 2 other pieces of fabric with the same dyes, so I got those out to see if they could be substituted - no not really. I considered using the piece with the much lighter portion at the top as if it were sky, but didn't like the abrupt contrast. I considered splicing a piece from the other fabrics and found a portion that was similar enough not to jar but different enough to look like it was intentional.
Here is the spliced fabric (left) sewn to the original fabric (right) with the foil arranged on top (not the final sequence). I plan to trim off part of the left side to make the piece square once I decide just where I want that splice to fall. Or should I rethink my arrangement, leave it offset?
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