I spent a quiet Thanksgiving day at home yesterday, still swollen but able to eat pot roast cooked until it was nearly falling apart...yum! I also spent a few hours working on the fabric postcards for my blogger anniversary giveaway. These have gone better than my first effort, and I may be getting addicted to this small format. It's a little like Twitter or texting (which gives a limited number of spaces in which to speak one's mind); One has to be focused and concise to make a design work in this small of a space. Superfluousness must quickly be discarded, harsh editing used to make the message fit, clarity intact. They aren't exactly masterpieces, but I am pleased enough with how they came out. I particularly loved finding a project in which to use these small pieces of hand-marbled fabric. The winner of the above card, randomly drawn from commentors on the announcement post is....Wil Opio Oguta! E-mail me your postal address so I can send this along and let me know if you think it would survive international travel. If not, I'll put it in an envelop to protect it.
I thought I'd run a few errands today, but there's still enough swelling in my face to make me self-conscious about being out in public. I also remembered that, being the day after Thanksgiving and the official start of the holiday shopping season, there'd be bedlam out there. Better to wait a few days and stay home, putting the finishing touches on the postcards. I used Decor Bond again for my stiffener, but I added Thermore batting between it and the front before quilting. It doesn't add a great deal of dimension, but when the card is handled, there's that give that tells you it's definitely a textile. The previous ones did not have batting, and it bugged me just a bit. Back to my issue of why do something in fabric that might be better done in a different medium. Just a personal quirk.
I thought about trying binding on these, but went back to the satin stitching again to finish the edges. I'm still not getting the consistent coverage I'd like (used a pen to fill in some gaps and darken stray threads), but I came up with a different way to handle the corners that worked much better for me. On the first pass, I stopped the width of the satin stitch from each corner with the needle down on the left. Raising the presser foot, I pivoted to head down the next side, but sewed slowly in reverse to the edge before resuming satin stitching down that side. On the second pass, I sewed all the way to the end of a side, then slowly sewed in reverse until the left swing of the needle put it at the inside edge of the adjacent satin stitching. Then I could pivot and head down that side. This process seemed to eliminate the problem I'd had before with stitching bunching up at the corners and the feeddogs not having enough to grab on to to move the piece forward.
I'm calling these, "Negative Flow" since they are based on the negative cutouts from "Flow" and have the same type of quilting on them. (Click on either picture for a larger view.) The two above are going to two of my official followers as seen in the sidebar. One I chose randomly - Congrats to magsramsay! My goodness, another international reader...you too need to e-mail me a postal address and let me know if you want this coming naked through the mails or in an envelop. The other postcard goes to katney because she was my very first official follower, the one who made me aware there was such a thing! She's just over in the next state, so katney, e-mail me your address and I'll get this in the mail.
I thought I'd run a few errands today, but there's still enough swelling in my face to make me self-conscious about being out in public. I also remembered that, being the day after Thanksgiving and the official start of the holiday shopping season, there'd be bedlam out there. Better to wait a few days and stay home, putting the finishing touches on the postcards. I used Decor Bond again for my stiffener, but I added Thermore batting between it and the front before quilting. It doesn't add a great deal of dimension, but when the card is handled, there's that give that tells you it's definitely a textile. The previous ones did not have batting, and it bugged me just a bit. Back to my issue of why do something in fabric that might be better done in a different medium. Just a personal quirk.
I thought about trying binding on these, but went back to the satin stitching again to finish the edges. I'm still not getting the consistent coverage I'd like (used a pen to fill in some gaps and darken stray threads), but I came up with a different way to handle the corners that worked much better for me. On the first pass, I stopped the width of the satin stitch from each corner with the needle down on the left. Raising the presser foot, I pivoted to head down the next side, but sewed slowly in reverse to the edge before resuming satin stitching down that side. On the second pass, I sewed all the way to the end of a side, then slowly sewed in reverse until the left swing of the needle put it at the inside edge of the adjacent satin stitching. Then I could pivot and head down that side. This process seemed to eliminate the problem I'd had before with stitching bunching up at the corners and the feeddogs not having enough to grab on to to move the piece forward.
I'm calling these, "Negative Flow" since they are based on the negative cutouts from "Flow" and have the same type of quilting on them. (Click on either picture for a larger view.) The two above are going to two of my official followers as seen in the sidebar. One I chose randomly - Congrats to magsramsay! My goodness, another international reader...you too need to e-mail me a postal address and let me know if you want this coming naked through the mails or in an envelop. The other postcard goes to katney because she was my very first official follower, the one who made me aware there was such a thing! She's just over in the next state, so katney, e-mail me your address and I'll get this in the mail.
No comments:
Post a Comment